So much for all those beauty pageant assurances that these contests are based more on leadership, poise, and accomplishment than they are on traditional western notions of beauty.

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"In the mid-90s people would rather burn their scalps with chemicals to straighten it to confirm with the Western standard of beauty than have natural hair and that pained me, " he says passionately.

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But she does see in India, as in other fast developing countries, a growing interest in western standards of beauty - driven in part by increasing access to US media via satellite and an ensuing fascination for all things American.

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Even when we hear of the impact in Fiji, where within three years of the introduction of US-based television the Western ideal of beauty has caused bulimia in 15% of adolescent girls, and we glimpse a far more infectious and pernicious disease - body hatred - than the measles virus we exported to the colonies in Victorian times, we measure neither the cost to ourselves or to them.

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Her photograph was often published, usually next to that of lithe beauty Queen Rania of Jordan, another Western-styled fashion icon with a busy public calendar.

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In a similar manner, the beauty of global warming hysteria is that it is a Western affair.

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After all, Western art in many ways starts with the Greeks, who made ideal beauty, with its glimpse of divine perfection, the hallmark of their culture.

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