More Make-Up = More Trustworthy?

A recent study was conducted from Harvard, Mass General Hospital and Proctor and Gamble that compared observers perceptions of pictures of women's faces with various stages of make-up on.  The results, which shouldn't seem surprising for US culture which seems to glorify beauty, demonstrated that the participants (both men and women) perceived the images of the women with more make-up on to be more attractive, more trustworthy, more likeable and more competent.  It seems, however, that there is an important balance as when too much make-up is used the participants rated the person as less trustworthy than the image of a woman with no make-up on.  The video link is below:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/video/makeup-changes-perceptions-of-women-14662824#.Tout4zx3xts.google

How does this relate back to us as athletic trainers and educators?  Well, as this is only one study it would be difficult, at best, to generalize the results to suggest that all females should be taking classes on how to apply make-up.  What it highlights for me is the image that we have socially ingrained into our brains that wearing make-up equals being a beautiful person.  I believe the message this study sends to all - men, women, boys and girls - is that if you are not attractive, you are less than worthy, you are not smart enough, trustworthy enough.  I am not sure that is the message we want to be putting out there.  Instead, I would like to have messages sent out - especially to our youth - that each of us is unique and we should celebrate that.  Dove has created a video they are using for girls and self-esteem - I would like to see more of these types of messages rather than the message of putting on more make-up!