The Human Obsession
In most television programs or magazines, depictions of an unrealistic population are portrayed. The images of clean-cut suburbanite family life, portrayed by television in the middle of the twenty-first century, can certainly be joked about now, however, this was only the spark that lit the flame. Families like the Cleaver’s, the Nelson’s, the Osmond’s and the Brady’s were put on screen to show our world what everyone’s life should be like. They had good children, nice homes, and every episode taught some lesson in mortality. Every wife wanted to be just like June or Harriet. Every teenager wanted to be Greg or Marsha. Society felt that they could be like one of these unrealistic characters, possibly have something that they had, they would, in some way, be happier or a better person. Then, corporations caught wind of this “effort to be like” and sent it to their advertising departments. Soon, it was not just another pretty face endorsing Mabeline cosmetics; it was super-model, Twiggy. Who better to sell the products, but someone rich, famous, beautiful, and appearing to be flawless. These seemingly trivial beginnings have now snowballed. Take a closer look at who is on the big screen; superstars like Pamela Anderson, a 5’7” blond weighing in at 115 pounds, including both of her 34 DDD’s. These are the images our society looks at in awe and strives to become. Looking good is a universal human obsession. Plastic surgery has taken the role of the closest thing to perfection of the body that we obtain. The reasoning behind cosmetic surgery are self-esteem, success, social stability, and health.
The definition of plastic surgery is “a medical specialty that has distinct branches of its own. ...
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...Four out of the top five types of cosmetic surgeries in 1992 were performed to correct birth defects, effects from diseases, and injuries. The surgeries in order of the most frequently performed were tumor removal, hand surgery, lacerations, and scar revision (Heckaman and Henry 5 and 7).
Underlying the outer appearances are the reasons for undergoing cosmetic surgery. Low self-esteem seems to be the number one cause for evasive actions taken in an attempt to be perfect. Many that do not feel naturally good about themselves do not receive the praise necessary to achieve a healthy level. Taking five minutes a day to compliment or praise another person, the world would not have to face the obstacles that we do about appearance and self image. Afterall, there are over 1 billion women in this universe and only eight of them are supermodels. The chances are slim.
Nordqvist, Christian. “What is Cosmetic Surgery? What is Plastic Surgery?” Medical News Today. 30 June 2009. Web. 13 March 2014.
Beautiful people with stellar personalities are often found within the media, whether it be in a television show, a movie, or a magazine. These so-called celebrities set the standards extremely high for appearance, making those who do not meet those standards come across as unappealing or unattractive. The media creates a negative stigma that unpleasant looking people are inferior to the good-looking, ergo, many people strive to become more attractive looking and are willing to do ludicrous things to themselves, such as plastic surgery, in order to obtain this fabricated sense of beauty. According to media standards, Pal...
Cosmetic Surgery is the procedure done to restore or improve one’s physical appearance. The use of surgery to have an actualization of a want tends to be unneeded since it is not in line with the purpose of reestablishing what was lost or damaged. Although cosmetic surgery intends to be used for restoration purposes, many people have abused it for the sake of vanity. Cosmetic surgery also has good and bad effects on the person in many different aspects.
As a result of the wide variety of media that is in the world, it plays as one of the main factors to most of the body distortion and low self-esteems that is put on men and women. According to Lau, beauty or body perfection, “...is a social/cultural construct, and that advertising, lifestyle/entertainment magazines, movies, scripted and reality television, documentaries and even public service campaigns all play a role in normalising the unrealistic pursuit of body perfection” (Lau, Harris-Moore…). Because of the broad variety of media there is, each has a different perspective on what the ideal ‘real beauty’ is, this causes a lot of pressure to be put upon people on how they should truly appear. In addition, media is also setting the standards that people should start looking like celebrities. As stated by a plastic surgeon, Z. Paul Lorenc in The Culture of Beauty, is that “...one of several concerns is the more and more Americans are seeking plastic surgery because of the very high beauty bar set by celebrities” (Gerdes, The Culture of Beauty). Due to the media constantly flaunting how attractive celebrities are, it makes men and women feel as if they are not good enough and that they need to modify themselves to become socially acceptable in the eye of
...getting cosmetic surgery will eventually become abnormal. Meaning ‘true’ beauty isn’t what the media is representing and the norm will become to have ‘false beauty’. Communicating this form of science and technology in this way results in giving individuals a negative message about body image as well as leaving out certain scientific data or risk behind it, meaning people cant make informed choices.
Cosmetic surgery companies offer many options in which to finance cosmetic procedures for individual of all income levels. There were over 10 million surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures performed in the United States in 2008, as reported by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS). (Surgery, 2009) The statistic mentioned, clearly shows how many of us now would be willing to undergo cosmetic surgery. But, have you asked why? In today’s society, plastic surgery is the number one chosen alternative decision for the augmentation of physical appearance, scar repair and for the repair of a deformity, whether it be a birth defect or disfigurement from an accident.
One might perceive that cosmetic surgery is like a self inflicted wound in its attempt to heal one psychological agony. Like hair dye and makeup cosmetic surgery only serves to alter one’s appearances, however it does not change who we are inside. By altering one appearance is that some how physically harming someone else? Is it wrong to want something better for yourself? Does the risk of plastic or cosmetic surgery outweigh its benefit? “Some may think that the risk of death is better than living in misery.”(Therese 1)
According to Discourse and Society “Cosmetic surgery needs to be seen as an important social practice because it merges the attention given to the body by an individual person with the values and priorities of the consumer society.” Younger generations are easily drawn to the hype that is presented by the media, and in turn look at themselves as imperfect, and seek to make changes to their body as a result.
Plastic surgery is one of the most growing fields in medicine. Reconstructive surgery is one of the branches from plastic surgery and it is defined as surgeries performed to restore facial and body defects caused by a disease, trauma, burns, or birth defects (Nelson, 2010). When it first started, it focused on helping people who are having difficulty blending in society. For instance, during the Renaissance era, in the late 1700s, doctors worked on enhancing the appearance of patients suffering from the nose deformation caused by syphilis using plastic surgery. Enabling them to blend in society and cover the disease. Also, after World War I, because there were a large number of soldiers with disfiguring injuries, the United States of America relied on plastic surgeries to improve the life of wounded soldiers (Nelson, 2010). The other branch of plastic surgery is cosmetic surgery. This type of surgery is performed to preserve or restore normal appearances, or to enhance it beyond the average level (American Board of Cosmetic Surgery, 2014). For the last couple of years, Plastic surgery marketing has focused massively on cosmetic surgery procedures rather than reconstructive ones. This type of advertising is having negative effects on society by increasing the number of needless procedures, changing the true meaning of beauty, and harming females’ self-esteem.
The evolution of medical it has progressed rapidly to meet demand and better treatment. Some improvements in the body, as well as important that we are widely known, is "plastic surgery". The meaning of the plastic surgery is the changes of the body in order to have a better attractive with the process of surgery, transplantation and injection of the organs. Such as surgery, nose hair transplantation, injected to surface fitting, etc. From the utterance of DR. Cory Torgerson make us all know that in the past, the most constructive surgery was used for restoring facial features after an accident or to restore facial function during World War I and World War II. Part of the beauty is popular among
Children love to draw even if that’s drawing on the wall of their home or creating a masterpiece on the table. If they are not satisfied with their drawing they can modify it and make it better to their extent. Plastic surgery is just that. It is changing or modifying the way someone looked for different reasons. Dating back to ancient times and its most basic form, plastic surgery has been apart of the world for many centuries (Kalantar-Hormozi, 2013). Since then it has advanced enormously and in society today any part of the body can be manipulated. Plastic surgery also called cosmetic or reconstructive surgery is acceptable for bullied victims, weight loss successors and accident survivors that undergo this ancient practice to better themselves
Today plastic surgery has become a multi billion dollar industry and continues to evolve each day.
While many people think that cosmetic surgery can help them to reach the flawless beauty, it may be true that their actual inner illnesses or lack of confidence in themselves is still not
In researching the world of “Plastic Surgery”, we approach a dividing factor. There are two categories into which most operations are labeled. Cosmetic surgeries occur when an individual takes notice of a particular feature on his/her body and makes the decision to alter the imperfection. In humans, it is impossible to find a “flawless” being. Our bodies, in their own right, are not created equal. A certain degree of asymmetry exists within each of us. Symmetry is not a dominant trait in the human race. Take a picture of your face, photographing each side individually. Place each photo side by side. Notice the difference? Each feature, your eyes, your nose, and even your lips take on their own sense of symmetry, or asymmetry if you will. Reconstructive surgery takes place when an individual is blessed with features that hinder his/her ability to lead a normal, healthy, life.
Colins, Joan. N.d..”The Pro’s and Con’s of Plastic Surgery”. Retrieved on January 28th, 2008. From http://cseserv.engr,scu.edu/StudentWebPages/KNguyen/researchpaper.htm