“Medieval noblewomen swallowed arsenic and dabbed the blood of bats to improve their complexion; Eighteenth-century Americans enjoyed boys' warm urine to erase their freckles; Victorian women removed their ribs to give themselves a wasp waist. 5 Even since the Middle Ages, the extent to which women have gone to achieve “ideal beauty” is extreme. In the 21st century, Americans spend more money on beauty-related products than on their education, creating a $160 billion-a-year global industry, all in the name of “perfection.” 5 The intensification of body image ideals has increased through the media and manipulation in the advertising industry, due to the portrayal of women, leading to the creation of a $20 billion cosmetic surgery industry. Driven and fueled by sexual instinct and the desire to achieve perfection, images of women in advertising will continue to exert enormous power over the everyday woman who spends her life chasing an ideal that doesn't exist, often leading to psychological consequences and physical. effects that can last a lifetime. In the world of social media, the influence of advertising is much stronger than it once was, as it is a form of social communication that influences and often manipulates us. Advertising is everywhere, from the photo on the cover of a magazine, to the online ads that appear as we scroll through web pages, and nowadays it is a predominantly visual phenomenon, the text is minimal and an image dominates to capture and attract the our attention. Much of the advertising seen today is little about the actual product, but more about the construction of the advertisement, playing on the social needs and desires that surround it: we buy the product because we believe we need it to succeed socially. The... center of the card... Ideal Beauty. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.2 Cortese, A. J. (1999). Provocative. Maryland, United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.3 Chitty, SDA a. B. (2011). Real or relevant beauty? Body shape and sponsor effects on brand attitude and body image. Psychology and Marketing, 28. doi:10.1002/mar.204154 Millum, T. (1975). Images of women. London, UK: Chatto & Windus.5 The business of beauty: vessels of promise. (2003). Retrieved May 20, 2014, from http://www.economist.com/node/17958526 Kilbourne, J. (2010). Killing Us Softly 4 [Documentary]. Retrieved from http://trutube.tv/video/4851/Killing-Us-Softly-4-2010-Jeane-Kilbourne#7 Russell, C. (2013). TED Talk: Appearance isn't everything. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM4Xe6Dlp0Y8Anorexia and Bulimia Statistics. Retrieved January 6, 2014, from http://www.ed.org.nz/index.asp?pageID=2145862939