High school girls are facing great emotional and social changes, as they gradually pull away from the dependent child role they used to play within their family. Many of these girls, en route to womanhood, find themselves alone and confused. The only roles to be had are those within the community of one's peers and those that are defined by popular culture and mass media. Popular culture offers girls limited roles in society. They are heavily influenced by society's superficial desire for physical beauty. So, when girls see models plastered all over magazines and billboards, and are given Barbies to play with throughout their childhood, they see how society wants them to look. These messages do not go unnoticed by the subconscious mind. As a result of these messages, worth is defined by appearance. These messages are rarely malicious or calculating, but exist nonetheless.

Many young women escape the stereotypical roles and damaging messages of our culture; however, there is no single factor that predetermines the fate of a girl. The only factor that can clearly aid a girl is perspective. A girl may say "I feel depressed." Her friend might ask her what is wrong, and the girl is likely to reply that she feel fat or ugly. Most girls' unhappiness is immediately converted into dissatisfaction with her appearance. This reaction is due to the values to which she is exposed, and translated to her sense of self. If she depends on her looks as her defining characteristic, her emotional problems will be transformed into problems with her appearance.

In Disney's The Little Mermaid, the evil witch, Ursula, conjures the image of an over weight girl and sings, "...this one longing to be thinner." Then an image of a scrawny young man appears and she sings, "...this one wants to get the girl." Suddenly, the two figures are transformed into a thin mermaid and a muscular merman. For their wishes, they sell their souls to Ursula and she condemns the two to her garden of victims. Her victims are immobile, plantlike creatures with skinny neck-stems and large bulging eyes. They have no mouth, no voice, no mobility. They suffer silently since they have no choice. When we see girls with starved bodies and unspoken turmoil, we are seeing Ursula's victims. Ursula's victims are victims of our cultural ideals. We have sold our souls to another kind of witch whose victims are diffused throughout our country. Beauty surrounds us, if we recognize it. Every face and every body is beautiful if we can keep our minds from being taken over by the images of popular culture.