Beyonce’s ‘Pretty Hurts’ Video: 5 Times She Shows Us What’s Wrong With Society If there’s one thing just about every person can agree on, it’s the fact that Beyonce is worthy of the role model title. Over the past year, she worked quietly behind the scenes on 14 songs and 17 videos, not even uttering a peep while the rest of the world kept the spotlight on her. The woman lets her work speak for itself, and after taking in the visual album, we’re pretty happy about what Queen Bey is saying. In her video for “Pretty Hurts,” Beyonce is desperately working to win a beauty pageant. After weeks and weeks of preparation, starvation and dedication, Miss 3rd Ward is pushed to her limits, and though she tried with every fiber of her being, she still lost the competition in the end. While watching the video, we couldn’t help but notice that art was imitating life, and Beyonce was shedding light on such an ugly part of societal pressures on women. From models eating cotton balls to a gorgeous girl going to the doctor for plastic surgery, below are the five times Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts” video nailed it.

Cotton balls: Sadly, Bey showing the trendy cotton ball diet isn’t the first, or even the second, time we’ve been hearing about the extreme fad this year. Starting in the fashion world amongst models trying to stay thin, the diet has trended down towards young girls who are learning to eat cotton balls soaked in orange juice via YouTube videos. MORE: Cotton Ball Diet Trickles Down From Models to Young Girls Plastic surgery: Despite extreme cases of plastic surgery gone wrong, like Heidi Montag’s infamous 10 surgeries in one day, somehow it’s still socially acceptable and even applaudable in some cases to have minor sessions of plastic surgery. A nose job here, an eye lift there and suddenly young girls are seeing women with plastic faces, putting ideas into their heads that everything can always be improved upon, even if that means surgically altering your face. Taking pills: After she’s weighed, Beyonce takes pills, and while we don’t know what they were, the contents of the pills aren’t as poignant as the context of the pills.

We can take an educated guess and say they’re weight loss pills, combined with the fact that she’s constantly exercising and weighing herself in the video. So many girls will fall into the trap of false headlines and advertisements about pills that will magically take off weight, yet never deliver on any promises. Measuring tape: Maybe a little too coincidental that the video depicted girls being measured by their waists and not anything else, but the fact that Bey sucked in her barely there stomach and her measurements were still met with a disapproving face hit close to home for the fashion and beauty industry. Losing the pageant: Even with all of her effort to lose weight, perfect her hair, tan her body and get her makeup just right, Beyonce still came in second place. Though it’s bad enough for an adult to come so far and fall flat, it makes us even more aware of how detrimental that loss can be for a younger girl, like the many far too young contestants portrayed on “Toddlers and Tiaras.”

Image via Beyonce “Pretty Hurts”Here we go again. Another model has revealed to the mainstream media that some models, in an effort to stay thin, eat cotton balls. The latest revelation comes from Bria Murphy, Eddie Murphy's 23-year-old daughter who models for beauty brand Dark & Lovely and has posed for magazines like Maxim. Green Lantern Shower CurtainMurphy told "Good Morning America" that she's witnessed her fellow models go to dangerous lengths to stay thin, from drug addictions to eating disorders.Corner Baths Ebay And then there's that ever-present diet trend: the cotton balls. Prom Dress Outlet Stores Toronto "I've heard of people eating the cotton balls with the orange juice… they dip it in the orange juice and then they eat the cotton balls to help them feel full, because the cotton's not doing anything.

And it makes you think you're full, but you're not." Crazy as it sounds, we've actually heard this plenty of times before. In 2010, model Amy Lemons told Model Alliance founder Sara Ziff that she'd seen young models eating cotton balls dipped in juice. In 2011, Sessilee Lopez's mother, Janice Celeste, wrote in her book: "I personally know of one model who dipped cotton balls in orange juice and consumed it to feel full. Later it came out that she had anorexia." Russian model Kira Dikhtyar told Fox News in 2012 that she'd heard the same thing done. Former Vogue Australia editor-in-chief Kristie Clements described similar behavior in her recent book, The Vogue Factor, but with a twist: Models are also eating tissues. No matter when or where it's happening, it's a devastatingly unhealthy habit that only underscores the desperation of many models to stay skinny. Let Bria Murphy's latest dispatch from the modeling field be a reminder of how far the modeling industry still has to go.

Watch Bria's "Good Morning America" segment here. If you're struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Eating Disorders helpline at 1-800-931-2237. Women who aren't letting skinny standards get them down:Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle. Bria Murphy Models Bria Murphy Model Cotton Balls Models Eat Cotton BallsFrom the tapeworm diet to the lemonade regimen, it seems like Americans have tried just about every fad imaginable to lose weight. But just when you thought you’ve heard it all, there’s more. The Internet is now buzzing about a new diet trend that would make even the most adventurous dieters blush. It’s called the cotton ball diet and there are plenty of YouTube and chat rooms online offering up examples on how it works. They claim all you need is a few cotton balls— (five) appears to be the magic number— and a glass of lemonade, a smoothie or orange juice.

The folks touting the diet online say you simply soak the cotton balls in your drink and eat up. They suggest doing this before eating a meal so you end up feeling full faster and limiting your food intake without gaining weight. Others say they simply subsist on the drenched cotton balls alone. But one diet expert who has been tracking diet trends for more than nine years, Brandi Koskie told ABC News in a recent report that the cotton ball diet is just bad news. “Nothing good can come of this. Absolutely nothing,” she said. Koskie pointed out that one of the biggest dangers is that folks who are trying this diet may not understand that not all cotton balls are created equal. In fact, Koskie noted that unless you’re feasting on an expensive organic brand, the cotton ball may not actually be made of cotton. Many cotton balls are bleached, polyester fibers that contain a lot of chemicals. “Your clothing is also made of polyester, so swallowing a synthetic cotton ball is like dipping your T-shirt in orange juice and eating it,” she said.