English with Jo

Beauty

This is the preparation material for an English conversation lesson about beauty and physical attractiveness.

Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction.  Something is beautiful if it is nice to look at it, hear it, feel it, taste it, smell it or think about it. The characterization of a person as “beautiful” is often based on some combination of inner beauty, which includes psychological factors such as personality, intelligence, politeness, charisma, integrity and elegance, and outer beauty (i.e. physical attractiveness) which includes physical attributes.  Standards of beauty have changed over time, based on changing cultural values. Historically, paintings show a wide range of different standards for beauty. However, humans who are relatively young, with smooth skin, well-proportioned bodies, and regular features, have traditionally been considered the most beautiful throughout history.  read more