Pam Adams, Contributor

Posted January 11 on a People magazine's website was the headline: 'Were You a Real-Life Ugly Betty?'

The 'were' of the headline implies the magazine is looking for past 'Ugly Bettys', but the few short paragraphs afterward leave a different impression.

Were you? Are you? The magazine must have felt a twinge of rudeness because the request ends on an oddly upbeat note: "And remember, ugly is the new beautiful!"

To which Peoria, Ill-based sculptor Preston Jackson says, "I have never seen a so-called ugly person in my life."

Jackson might be that rare human totally unburdened by notions of what beauty is. What to make of the appearance of a national obsession with appearance?

Is it any wonder more and increasingly more of us pump billions annually into health clubs, hair salons, Botox injections and expensive surgeries like breast lifts and liposuction, strictly for cosmetic reasons?

Lori Daniels, an antiques dealer-turned-artist, recalls, at eight or nine, how she thought she'd be beautiful if she were thin. By her 20s, she thought beauty equalled thin and blond.

First impressions

By her late 40s, she had had an eye-lift, a face-lift and an arm-lift.

"Your face is like the door to a house," she says. "First impressions are really important."

Decades of psychological research on perceptions and consequences of physical beauty back her up. Frank McAndrew, a psychology professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., points to numerous studies that suggest people considered physically attractive get better treatment, starting at birth.

Mothers bond more readily with cute babies. Handsome men earn more money. Landlords are more likely to rent to people they deem attractive. One study found people judged better looking, on average, lived longer. Another found that candidates who appeared to look more competent than their opponents were more likely to win congressional races.

Even attractive burglars tend to get shorter sentences when convicted of the crime. And in the case of rape victims, according to an old study, the more attractive the victim, the longer the sentence.

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