Highly attractive people enjoy a lot of unearned perks in life, and appearance discrimination is a serious social problem. However, beauty is not a strong predictor of happiness or life satisfaction. Dr. Kjerstin Gruys explains why investing in appearance is an exercise in diminishing returns, and why we should be investing more in our social relationships instead. Dr. Kjerstin Gruys is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Nevada, Reno and author of Mirror, Mirror, OFF the Wall: How I Learned to Love My Body By Not Looking at It for a Year (Avery, 2013), which received a coveted "starred review" from Publisher's Weekly. Her sociological research broadly explores the relationship between physical appearance and social inequality, with a particular focus on gender as it intersects with race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and age. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx