"Ugly is the new beautiful," the theme of ABC's TV show Ugly Betty, is picking up steam. "The fight for female self-esteem gets pretty ugly," reports Ann Oldenburg in an USA Today article about the BE UGLY '07 public service campaign that starts on-air tonight during "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve."

In the article, Oldenburg accurately states that, "The campaign is the latest entry in a backlash to the images of rail-thin models that bombard young women daily."

Girls Inc. president Joyce Roche is quoted as saying the campaign "allows us to counter the messages girls get that they've got to be perfect, be a certain size, look a certain way." Roche is right. It's time for the pendulum to swing back to normal and away from promoting unhealthy lifestyles in order to achieve the anorexic look erroneously labeled as "beautiful" these days.

Roche also is quoted in the article as saying, "I wish there would have been another way of saying it, but at least it will get the dialogue going." We also wish they'd chosen a different theme than "ugly is the new beautiful." It's not the best theme, but it hopefully will get the dialogue going, as Roche says.

Talking the article over with a young woman, she came up with a different theme: "Find ugly in beauty," and by "beauty" she meant the image of beautiful that the media has been promoting for far too long.

Either way, whether embracing "ugly is the new beautiful," or "find ugly in beauty" the idea is the same, find true beauty in yourself. Be yourself! As the BE UGLY '07 campaign proclaims: Be real. Be smart. Be kind. Be honest. Be true to yourself. Visit the campaign's website at http://beugly07.com/.