I. What I Know Insecurity is no stranger to the middle school environment; I noticed that twelve-year-old girls felt the need to hide with makeup. This seems to be caused by an ideal of unattainable perfection, an ideal that seems to be imposed by the mass media. I've noticed that people are looking for appearance-altering products to hide, and these types of products are filling up most of the advertising time on television. I believe there is a terrible correlation between a person's appearance and perceived value; this is depicted in Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll". This pressure can weigh heavily on an individual making them feel trapped and in desperate need of a solution to relieve the pressure. Therefore, the person must strive to fit the mold of what the media and society portray as perfect. Sometimes this leads a person to physically change himself. As noted above, body image and insecurity seemed to be the theme throughout middle school. I remember hearing girls talking in the locker room in seventh grade about how they were trying to lose weight. I remember seeing a girl eat only one apple for lunch every day at school. I remember hearing rumors that parents let their children take diet pills so they would fit. I remember girls dying their hair and wearing makeup in sixth grade. I also remember that I hadn't thought about it; it just seemed normal. Why did I think it was good? When and why girls wanted to start changing themselves; why did they believe they weren't enough? I read an article about a preteen who got her nose job because her peers allegedly bullied her; he was only thirteen. She said she had never been bullied until the second time… half of the paper… dy is on display but it is reconstructed and “painted” (19-24). Being changed is a solution sought by people with bipolar disorder to stop criticism; they are facing from themselves or from others. In the end the protagonist was accepted only in death because she had changed. However, when people with bipolar disorder use cosmetic surgery as a solution, their disorder does not go away; cosmetic surgery can even exacerbate the problem. Works Cited Gorbis, Eda. “Addiction to plastic surgery in patients with body dysmorphic disorder.” PsychiatricTimes 22.10 (2005): 79-81. Proquest. Network. May 6, 2014.Kilbourne, Jeane. “Killing Us Softly 4.” TruTube. TruTube, n.d. 2010.Web. May 5th. 2014. Serdar, Kasey L. “Female Body Image and Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard.” Westminster College. Westminster College and Web. 04 May 2014.