Growing up in the 1990's when the words fashion and trend both cunningly vanished out of the dictionary it's amazing to just how obsessed people have become with shopping and the need to look good. None of us are superstars, so what's the obsession with trying to look like one?
With so many of us spending every waking moment dragging shopping bags around the high street, it's a good job we're able to make massive savings on our motor insurance. And where would we be without a car? I would hate to think what it would be like carrying all those shoes, tops and accessories on the bus ride home.
Back in the day, I remember if you were lucky enough to afford a new top with your pocket money let alone your hair and nails done to finish the outfit off. It's easy to sound like an old woman, but anybody who grew up in the late 80's, early 90's in leggings and a T-shirt has the right to complain about how good young women seem to look today.
But how do they afford it? Obviously, they don't have the expenses of a mortgage or woman car insurance to pay out for but even when I was working, from the age of 13, I still couldn't afford to buy the Ben Sherman shirt and box leather jacket that all the rich kids were wearing at school.
I guess some might say "Thank goodness for Primark'". Without that shop and its cheap jersey tops and man-made handbags how would any of us survive in the modern and obsessed world of fashion? If only it had been around when I was younger, my £12-a-week wages would have gone a long way.
A number of studies have been carried out into this fascination of image and many of them came to the same conclusion, that we have become obsessed with celebrity. Just as we admire the pretty faces on motor insurance adverts, some of us aim to look and feel like a celebrity. This obsession has lead to a huge upping in reality TV programmes such as Big Brother and the X Factor where any random person can experience the delights (and nightmares) of being famous.
But just as the media has portrayed perfectly airbrushed images to us normal folk, the same media has created debate on the subject on image, questioning just where exactly many of us have got our perceptions of the perfect body. Magazines, TV documentaries and news programmes have all blamed it on one thing, size zero models.
Size zero has become a popular news story this year with celebrities such as Louise Redknapp carrying out their own research for self-made documentaries. Louise's documentary in particularly depicted her struggle to lose weight in vein to become size zero and showed TV viewers just how badly you can damage your body by trying to achieve this skinny look.
When asked about why she wanted to do the documentary Louise said, "I went to stage school and I always wanted to be in entertainment. I have always felt even at a size eight that I have never quite been skinny enough..there was always the pressure that if I could have lost half a stone it would have been better. It is such a lot of pressure on a young woman and if I was feeling that, I know a lot of other young women were also feeling that."
Thankfully, other TV programmes such as channel 4's How to Look Good Naked have shown women in the UK that they needn't spend their motor insurance savings on plastic surgery or books explaining to you what the latest fad diet is. Instead, the show helps women who can't even bear to look at their own reflection in the mirror and transforms them into confident beauties. What the programme proves is that, although a good wardrobe helps maketh the women, what really counts is how that person feels about themselves and if their confidence and well being shines through their overall image.
If only the media could show us more images of confident women such as those shown on lady motor insurance adverts; they don't look like the type of women to obsess about their image. There's no denying that shopping's fun and exciting and that we all like to look good, but maybe it's better to take time away from the high street and get in our cars to do something a little more worthy of our free time.