Media's messages on body image not hard to decipher

Monday night found me watching the impossibly toned Jennifer Nettles hop around the stage on the Country Music Association Awards feeling just a little inadequate. Nettles is the lead singer of country pop duo Sugarland. If I remember correctly, Sugarland used to be a trio. Suddenly I started to wonder what happened to the group’s plain-looking, not-so-toned, short-haired female guitarist.

Maybe she faded into obscurity in light of the fact that Nettles was not only the group’s lead singer, but for all intents and purposes, the entire band. If you watch the band’s video for “Just Might (Make Me Believe)” it’s tough to tell if there are any members other than Nettles. What can I say? The girl can sing… and her face can sell records.

It’s true that plain-looking people tend to fade into the background. And lately television hasn’t been shy in pointing out that sad fact of biology.

On Friday, “20/20’s” John Stossel set out to uncover what we all already knew about “Privilege in America.” He discussed nepotism and unfair treatment of poor vs. wealthy citizens. He even did some great hidden-camera “investigations” in which a celebrity look-alike sailed to the front of the line in a busy coffee shop just to gauge the reactions. (What were people going to say — oh, yes, we love being cut in front of by Paris Hilton?)

The most harsh experiment came when he took two young women — one considered attractive and one considered plain — and put them head-to-head in a competition for tips at a sports bar and grill. The attractive waitress came back with about $50 more in tips than the other. Another experiment used the same premise and showed that people are more willing to help beautiful people if they drop a pile of books in the street.

Stossel really got me thinking about the predicament we find ourselves in with regard to body image. It doesn’t take Tyra Banks or Vanessa Manillo dressing up as overweight “Ugly Betties” to tell me that this discrimination really does occur (both of which actually happened, by the way).

Academics and psychiatrists are railing against the “rail” thin models filling fashion magazines. French officials recently outlawed anorexic models walking the catwalk in fashion shows. But none of that changes the fact that we are biologically wired to show favor toward beauty. That’s the case according to anthropologist Helen Fisher, who said that beauty appeals to a primal mechanism. Beauty simply equals good genes in our brains. We’re attracted to beauty, and we just can’t help it. We also think beautiful people are smart, hard working and interesting. Anyone who has seen the “Anna Nicole” show knows, mentally, that’s not true.

But the good thing, Stossel said, is that we are now able to help ourselves in the race to be beautiful. “Extreme Makeover” started the whole plastic surgery craze, but it was canceled last week. Luckily you’re never far from a doctor willing to fix your imperfections for the right price.

And it seems like we never make much progress on our want to accept all body types. A typical teen magazine might feature one or two models who happen to be a size 10 instead of a size eight, and that is supposed to suffice for progress. We watch “Celebrity Fit Club” and try to be happy because a has-been celebrity has dropped two pounds. We make front-page news out of an overweight lingerie model strutting down the runway but continue to care about the exploits of such pillars of the community as Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell.

I really don’t see this pattern changing, at least not until America Ferrera of ABC’s “Ugly Betty” can carry a blockbuster film and make millions. That would mean that Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon, Salma Hayek and Pamela Anderson would have to die in a horrific accident.

And everyone knows beautiful people wear their seat belts, right?