I couldn’t believe my eyes the other night. My friend Mikey pulled up the website for a company that specializes in retouching photos for models and celebrities. After perusing some of their sample retouched photos, I couldn’t decide whether to call these people graphic artists or scam artists. Like millions of Americans, I had no idea that when you "ooh" and "aah" over the latest Madonna or Paris Hilton layout in Cosmo, the photos have been airbrushed and digitalized to the point where you’re probably seeing only about 50% of the model’s actual body. Their thighs are thinned. Their cellulite is cancelled. Their wrinkles are erased, and their skin is smoothed.

In one picture, the model’s dress strap naturally made a little bit of skin pucker up where her arm bent. I guess it looked too much like fat and had to be removed from the final photo. Most amazing of all was the fact that the model’s mugs had already been worked over by Hollywood make-up masters. Lighting experts and dogmatic directors had already conspired to compose the perfect ambiance and layout. Still, complete "perfection" had not been reached and the photos needed to be polished and primed until they looked anything but natural and human. What does it say about us when even our most "perfect" Hollywood specimens are deemed too garish to be captured on film without their images being reworked to the nth degree?

These days, women can’t be too thin, even when their clavicles are poking out of their chests like poles out of a campground tent. On a recent episode of "America’s Next Top Model," which I was also watching with the aforementioned Mikey, a model bordered on tears. "She’s upset because she’s not thin enough to be a model," Mikey informed me. "She needs to lose about twenty pounds." Twenty pounds! From where, her internal organs? Perhaps her spleen needed to slim down a bit, because I couldn’t imagine where to take twenty pounds off her already petite frame. I shouldn’t be able to pick my teeth with a supermodel’s left leg.

The purpose of ribs is to protect your heart and lungs, not to jut out through your cleavage. I’m a vegetarian, but I do believe that the only time ribs should be visible is when they’re covered in barbeque sauce on a dinner plate at Damon’s. Aside from slimming down to the size of a toothpick, there are lip plumps, botox injections, breast implants, tummy tucks, butt implants, face lifts, and the list goes on ad nausea. Jessica Simpson looks like she has two grapefruit halves stuck to her chest, and Lisa Rinna’s "trout pout" reminds me of my bathroom plunger. Check out www.awfulplasticsurgery.com and you’ll be blown away. Make sure you visit the website at least an hour after eating.

It seems that, especially regarding women, our entire society suffers from body dismorphia. We’re in a situation of extremes. A large percentage of us are overweight or obese, yet we idolize celebrities who deny rumors of eating disorders for months, only to confess to their anorexia or bulimia, then recant their confessions. We can’t decide if we want to look like Aretha Franklin or Jessica Rabbit. I realize that eating disorders often have a biological component, but it’s undeniable that many young, impressionable girls are literally dying to be thin because they want to emulate their favorite singers, actresses, and models.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the average American woman is 5’4" tall and weighs 140 pounds. The average American model is 5’11" tall and weighs 117 pounds, and most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women. Also according to NIMH, in their lifetime, between .5% and 3.7% of women will be anorexic, and 1.1% to 4.2% of women will be bulimic. Eating disorders are in no way limited to women. Between 2% and 5% of Americans experience binge-eating disorder in a six-month period, including men. An estimated 5% to 15% of people with anorexia or bulimia, and an estimated 35% of those with binge-eating disorder, are male.

The hazards of being persistently unsatisfied with your body are numerous. The Learning Channel is currently running a program on the 99 most bizarre surgical mistakes ever recorded, and many of them involve patients who elected enhancements to improve their body image. One woman, known as the "realtor to the stars," had collagen—and a vicious infection—pumped into her cheeks. After 45 facial reconstruction surgeries, she still resembles Alvin the Chipmunk. A gym-bodied man wanted to bulk up his skinny legs with calf implants. The doctor used calf implants that were too large and were later removed. Due to complications, the man now has atrophied, bone-thin legs and only 20% control over his leg muscles. He lived with constant, excruciating pain for over two years and nearly committed suicide. The very real fears of falling down or snapping a frail femur never leave his mind.

We are all victims of and contributors to this body image mess: the doctors who perform the surgeries, the patients who can’t get enough of them, the parents who tell their daughters they ought to lose "just a few pounds," and anyone who glances at the tabloid covers in the supermarket check-out line and thinks, "She’s beautiful, but she really doesn’t have much of a chest." There is no real quick fix for shedding pounds, wrinkles, bald spots, or our insane obsession with the "perfect" body. Long ago, humans came out of the caves, established civilization, and had time on their hands to criticize themselves and others, no longer needing to worry as much about food and shelter. The definition of the "perfect" body has changed much over the years, but not our desire to obtain it. It’s time to question what makes us create a perfect body image in the first place, deconstruct the very notion of a perfect body, build-up our self-esteem, and live for health, not image.