Hair is the crowning glory of men and women, a representation of a confident self-image. It is regarded by many as a fair indicator of good health and wellness.

Even in today's global economic hardship, with unemployment hovering over 7 to 8 per cent in the United States, there has been an increase of more than 60 percent in hair restoration inquiries made through the International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons and the American Hair Loss Association.

Obviously, people are unfazed by the cost of a 2000 graft hair transplant estimated at $10,000. This is a staggering amount to spend for what you might call sheer vanity in the face of an economic crisis considered worst since the depression in the 1930s.

Vanity or not, people obviously love their hair and will do everything within and, sometimes, beyond their means to keep it. For many men and women, it spells the difference between acceptance and rejection. They will go to great lengths to relieve the pain of being unhappy with their appearance, like spending their savings on hair loss treatment. For them, hair loss means ugly.

Hair loss is often regarded as a sign of weakness and poor health condition because it indicates certain thyroid problems, anemia, dietary and mineral deficiency, hormonal imbalance, and cancer.

But while these indications may be true, they represent extreme cases. In many instances, hair loss is nothing more than a genetic cause passed on by one generation to another. The fear of hair loss is a result of an advertising campaign by the billion-dollar hair loss industry to humiliate men and women with hairless heads.

Can you imagine Michael Jordan with hair? Or Yul Bryner? Or Sean Connery? You would probably say that is part of their image. But did the likes of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Mao Tse Tung choose to be bald to project a better image before the world? If at all, these men have proven that being bald has nothing to do with being unable to project confidence and acquire social acceptance.

Your hair has other uses aside from projecting a better self-image. It serves as a protective shield for various parts of our body. The hair on your head protects the skull and the brain, while your eyebrows serve as barrier from sweat and dust.

Unfortunately, hair care marketing experts think these are not enough reasons to persuade balding men and women to get hair analysis and convince them to purchase expensive hair loss lotions and creams, undergo hair transplants, or acquire expensive wigs and toupees.

In the face of advertisements that picture bald people in a most humiliating and shameful light, the likes of Bruce Willis, Samuel Jackson, Vin Diesel, and even movie actress Demi Moore, who appeared bald in the movie G.I. Jane, are increasingly growing in number to serve as role models for the unreasonably maligned bald minority.