Beautiful Dreamers

'Ugly club' spits in the eye of the beholders

So, you think you're ugly. You can either do something about it or you can accept it.

There are some people who think acceptance is the healthier, saner route, according to an article from C-Health. The message behind the message is that self-acceptance is an important part of healthy self-esteem and standards of beauty vary so widely and often are so demanding that it's useless to make yourself crazy over them.

A group called Club die Brutti, or "The Ugly Club," has been organized to fight what members say is the tyranny of the cult of beauty. One of the club's charter members, Telesforo Iacobelli, says his mission is to champion the cause of the ugly. Those who've seen Iacobelli, who lives in Italy, say he's not that bad looking. But he has a small nose in a culture where broad and long noses are favored. And that's exactly his point. He says ugliness is often a byproduct of our media-obsessed culture, the story says.

"Beauty is just one aspect in a person's make-up that can affect how they get along in society," says professor Gianni Camattari of the Centro di Psicologia Integrata of Milan. "Ugliness, in itself, is not an obstacle to having an active social life or even sex life; the real obstacle is the deep conviction of being ugly, which can be overcome."

To find out how some people are overcoming their hangups about their body image, you can read this article from Fitness Online. To find out more about self-esteem, and how it develops, read this article from the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology.

Related Stories

No stories found.
logo
www.healthday.com