Slimming companies bombard us with stories of how their weight-losing regimen transforms a fat and unhappy woman into a charming beauty.
Slim women with heavy makeup recline on billboards. They stare out from magazine covers and flicker on our TV screens.
Touting thin and trendy women as the paragon of beauty, the media is portraying a distorted view of beauty.
The findings of a recent survey have shown that local youngsters are influenced by the media and tend to view how they look as the key to confidence and happiness.
Conducted by cosmetics company DOVE, the survey was based on interviews with 900 teenage girls aged 15 to 17 from Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and other Asian countries.
Of the 300 local girls who took part, 96 per cent said they wanted to change their appearance.