Does seeing it in public make it ok?

You don't have to be perfect. Most people aren't. The problem is that most people want the best partners out there (by their own standards) and for that, you have to be something the best partners desire. Most people aren't the most attractive person in the room but they all tend to desire that person. This creates the illusion that to be desired you have to conform to that model of attraction.

Here's the trick, you don't have to be attractive to everyone. You just have to be attractive to the people you want to sleep with. That means if you keep your expectations reasonable, you actually do a lot better than you might if you are competing for supermodels.

There are lot of ordinary people out there who make wonderful lovers. It's really a shame that so many people over look them in their search for what they want. I personal love tall smart women with red hair and curves. Since these are consistent with public model of beauty, I have a lot more options available. I think as we age, we start to get a lot more reasonable about what we require in a lover. It's much more important that they want us in our all our middle age glory.

Oh, here's a secret.No matter what you think about your body now, chances are you'll really miss it when you get to 40

Nobody HAS to be perfect. Yes it may seem people have to go with what is in magazines but that is not true. People are following what are in magazines and then they have to comply with the public. If everyone changed their "style" magazines would have no use in advertising skinny models. They have to comply to our needs, not us to theirs.
Personally I think a girl looks best as she is naturally. Dove had a campaign for natural beauty a while back and I think its a great idea. Why hide natural beauty under tons of makeup? My feelings on that is that wearing makeup is ok but wearing it to hide freckles or Anything on your face is wrong. Be natural, be yourself and nothing in this world can be more beautiful.
This is just my opinion. Hope it helps though.
Ciao Ciao

Advertising is a product of making money by what's appealing; or instant gratification achieved in 30 seconds."if you smoke you'll be cool like Joe Camel;" but now you don't see any more commercials like that once the gov't figured out "smoking's bad and it causes lung cancer and millions of people die and costs them lots of money (which is actually our tax money) in cancer treatment, insurance, and everything else so let's make 'Anti-smoking commercials'"

And then I see tabloids and it's saying "good beach bodies/bad beach bodies" and it'll show some up and coming young star and then a celebrity who just had a baby, I mean wtf kind of competition is that.