How far will you go to get the look you want? There are many people who have gone as far as changing their appearance to the point that they are unrecognizable. From nose jobs, face lifts, to reshaping their eyes, it has become nearly an epidemic. Plastic surgery is a medical procedure invented to improve an individual’s physical appearance or to minimize scarring resulting from accidents, disease or birth defects as well as disfigurement. The word plastic is derived from the Greek, meaning molding or giving form.
Included in plastic surgery is cosmetic surgery, which can be used to reshape your face or body features. Cosmetic surgery is designed to improve an individual’s appearance. Some women in China would bind their feet, crippling themselves in the process to appear beautiful. It is said that their feet are to be no larger than a deck of cards or it was disgraceful. Western women poured themselves into corsets, often causing damage to their internal organs, for the sake of beauty. High heels are linked to back problems as well as foot problems.
The search for beauty and eternal youth continues, and today, modern technology has brought the medical profession into the issue. Fat can be literally sucked out of the body, body parts can be reduced or enlarged through surgery, and wrinkles can be erased. Where cosmetic surgery was once the near-exclusive purview of women, men are turning to surgical procedures in increasing numbers. There are, however, costs to such modification, and these costs extend well beyond the financial.
This research argues against the indiscriminate use of cosmetic surgery. “Plastic surgery has a very long history. As early as 1000 B. C. E. , the first plastic surgery was reported in India, where a person’s nose might be cut off as a form of punishment or, in the case of an adulterous Hindu wife, bitten off by the wronged husband. Procedures, which displayed remarkable similarity to present rhinoplasties, were developed to reconstruct the noses of such errant individuals (Davis 14). Plastic surgery appeared much later on the European continent.
In the early fifteenth century, physicians began doing nose surgeries, by using skin flaps taken from the arm. Other forms of plastic surgery began to appear around the early sixteenth century. With the invention of ether and antisepsis, plastic surgery was able to emerge as a full-fledged medical specialty (Davis 15). In the first part of the century, nearly all plastic surgeries were done to alleviate deformities due to disease, birth or mishap; however, in the second half of the century this was no longer the case. “
Plastic surgery has some advantages too, with reconstructive surgery. Reconstructive surgery is used to fix deficiencies that couldn’t otherwise be fixed by any other treatment. Reconstructive surgery makes a notable advancement, and can be used to repair birth defects, such as hair lips, cleft pallets and internal forms of function. It can also be used for one that has suffered injuries due to an accident, and can also save limbs and restore joints that would be irreparable. There are certain skin burns, depending on how severe that can be repaired by skin grafting.
Some facial injuries that involve dental repair are common procedures for plastic surgery. The field of plastic surgery has grown, allowing room for improvement and more accuracy of procedures. Cosmetic surgery may benefit some patients’ interpersonal relationships and self-esteem, which will lead to a better quality of life. This happens more often when the patient suffers from an abnormality, or other birth defects that affect their appearance. Cosmetic surgery is not to be taken lightly, as for some it has been proven to be damaging and have long-lasting side effects.
There have been many people that have gone through multiple surgeries in order to get the look that they want. There are many different reasons behind some folks becoming obsessed with the surgery. The majority of ones belief is that they can achieve physical perfection through cosmetic surgery. In an attempt to achieve a state of perfect physical beauty, some people repeatedly seek cosmetic surgery procedures to alter their appearance, believing they’re only a surgery away from their imagined ideal.
Many people who suffer from plastic surgery addiction are also victims of body dimorphic disorder, where an attractive person believes that they are unattractive no matter how appealing they may appear to another person. Celebrities who suffer from plastic surgery addiction often lack a strong self esteem and have a generalized level of unhappiness with them selves. Instead of addressing the real source of their unhappiness, they choose to solve their problems by altering their external appearance.
There are many people in the world that also too have altered their appearance to look like a celebrity as well. Many citizens in the society today have altered their faces to the point if you hadn’t known them before surgery, you wouldn’t recognize them afterwards. Statistics show that people aged between 35-50 years old had the most cosmetic procedures in 2007: 5. 4 million or 46 percent of that total. People between ages 51-64 years of age had 25 percent of the cosmetic surgery procedures in 2007.
People between ages 19-34 years old had 21 percent of the cosmetic surgery procedures in 2007. Senior citizens aged 65 and older had 6 percent of cosmetic surgery procedures in 2007. Teens aged 18 or younger had less than 2 percent of the cosmetic surgery procedures in 2007. Today even with the economy the way that it is people are still getting cosmetic surgery no matter what the cost. This just shows how some peoples lives are affected by the way that they appear to themselves and other people regardless of their age.