The Thief Of Joy By Theodore Roosevelt: Unrealistic Images Of Self Image

Many years ago, Theodore Roosevelt wisely lamented “comparison is the thief of joy”. And yet, due to our societal predisposition towards materialism in America, our self-concept and self-esteem are often heavily influenced by images perpetuated by the media and how we evaluate and compare our personal traits and physical attributes versus those images (Solomon, 2011). As a result, consumers, particularly women, have been assailed by a litany of unrealistic images of beauty for a multitude of years. However, as American culture and consumer behavior has evolved, images of ideal beauty have begun to expand to include women of all shapes and sizes (Bahadur, 2014). Therefore, given that clothing is a critical part of how we define our self image