I really don't know about other cultures or countries, but I think Filipinos (people who are from the Philippines) are too obsessed with beauty. And that's beauty defined usually as being fair-skinned, tall, having a "high nose," with long black hair (for women, though men are sometimes wearing their hair long, too), slim, being seen as "sexy" (and sexy connotes many other descriptions, too). In short, you're not beautiful (and sexy) if you're fat, dark-skinned, flat-nosed, has short even curly hair, has greying hair, etc., etc.. And i just hate it when people judge other people on the basis of how they look. "She's not beautiful, anyway." "He's not really that handsome." But what is beauty? There's a saying that goes like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." What's beautiful to one person may not be beautiful to another. Okay, that's democracy, I guess. But what bothers me so is that all this having "standards" for what is beautiful or sexy or good-looking tends to discriminate against people who don't "fit the standard" of beauty. And I don't think that's fair. Who says fat women can't be sexy? Who says that bald men can't be handsome? Why do we laugh when we say a fat woman? Why do we giggle when we see flat-nosed man? Now, I think media and advertising has to take a lot of blame for this mindset about beauty that has developed in a lot of people. Just take a look at how we are bombarded day in and day out by "beauty" contests; ads about whitening creams, silky black hair, vitamins that can make you tall, etc. etc. I'll say what's more important in people is not their "outer beauty" but their "inner beauty." And i'll say that if a person has a good heart, then that person is very beautiful.