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The effects of plastic surgery on humans
How body image affects teenagers
Cosmetic surgery of teenagers
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Growing up in a close-knit community, I was raised to stay firm to my morals and always strive to do my best and represent my family respectfully. My parents were never demanding of perfection; all they wanted was for me to do my best and be myself. Growing up, there was always peer pressure to conform and follow along with all the hot new trends. Anywhere from the newest electronics to the trendiest, expensive clothes, I wanted it all. This was all a part of growing up. However, there are exceptions. When it comes to permanent, life-altering choices at such a young age, conformity is not the right decision. Why is it so hard for teens to accept who they are? Why do the feel the need to look and be something or someone there not? What happens when it gets out of control? Is it more than the desire to follow a trend? Answers to these questions are not easily found due to all of the celebrity hype.
In the famous Disney movie, High School Musical there is a perfect example. With popular, beautiful girls chasing after handsome young men, it seemed to portray the “norm” for high school experiences. This may be partially true, but it was made possible by going under the knife. When Ashley Tisdale, who plays the preppy Sharpay Evans, admitted to getting a nose job prior to filming, many plastic surgeons and parents worried fans would want to do the same based purely off of cosmetic reasons. Tisdale had a leading role in a movie where she was popular, had a great singing voice and all the guys seemed to want her. Why would the youth today not want to look like her? All of these reasons are insufficient when it comes to reality.
Unlike adults who undergo plastic surgery to turn back the clock, teens sometimes crave pl...
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...he perfect body are flaunted all around as if taunting others to look like them. What most do not realize is the fact they were not all born looking the way they do. After thousands of dollars, enduring multiple surgeries and pain, and often suffering the consequences, do they look the way they do. Feeling the need to fit in does more than stay on the surface. Body dysmorphic disorder is a serious and life altering condition which is effecting more and more teens over the years. This problem needs to stop. Teens need to gain confidence in who they are and the way they look. They are all beautiful in their own way. What makes those celebrities or popular kids so much more pretty than the average teen? Although adults use plastic and cosmetic surgeries to stop the aging effects, the risks involved in teen plastic or cosmetic surgery by far outweigh the good.
Societal constructs of bodily perfection have a massive influence on both genders and on all ages. If you look at any magazine, you will see women constantly being compared to each other, whether it is in the “who wore it better” section or in the “do’s and don’ts” part of the magazine, comparing body images and overall appearances. All parts of the media that encompasses our daily lives are especially dangerous for young and impressionable teens because they see people being torn down for trying to express themselves, and are thus taught to not only don’t look like “don’ts”, but also look like the “do’s”. This is dangerous in that women in the magazine set very high standards that teens want to emulate, no matter the cost to themselves or their health. Celebrities have the benefit of media to make them appear perfect: Photoshop and makeup artists conceal the imperfections that are often too apparent to the naked eye. Viewing celebrities as exhibiting the ideal look or as idols will, in most cases, only damage the confidence of both young teens, and adults, and warp the reality of what true “beauty” really is. It makes teens never feel truly content with themselves because they will be aiming for an ideal that is physically impossible to attain and one that doesn’t exist in the real
Conformity means a change in one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. As a teenager, the pressure to conform to the societal “norm” plays a major role in shaping one’s character. Whether this means doing what social groups want or expect you to do or changing who you are to fit in. During class, we watched films such as Mean Girls, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and The Breakfast Club which demonstrate how the pressure to conform into society can change who you are. In the movies we have seen, conformity was most common during high school.
...ters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a woman’s body image by cosmetic surgery. These articles about appearance are damaging because it leads to seriously unhealthy lifestyles that women and teenagers think they need to look beautiful. In addition to that, Teen Magazine published in 2003 an article saying that children from age 6-12 have been on a diet and are now considering plastic surgery. Cosmetic surgery sends the message that the prejudices some people have about appearance are valid, which is very wrong.
Many people today feel insecure about their bodies. They feel that people will judge them more if they have a crooked nose or eyes that are too close to each other. Some get liposuction if they feel too fat or breast implants because they think it will make them more attractive to the opposite sex. These people who do not feel happy about the way their bodies portray themselves to others often feel that way because, according to psychologist Alan Feingold, “Physically attractive people often receive preferential treatment and are perceived by others as more sociable, dominant, mentally healthy, and intelligent than less attractive people.” (Feingold, 304-341) The individuals who think they are ugly can transform themselves from “ugly ducklings” to “swans” by using plastic surgery.
The media has had an increasingly destructive effect on young people who are becoming worryingly obsessed with their body image. The media is saturated in sexual imagery in which young people have to face every day. The sheer volume of sexual imagery in the media today has resulted in the vast majority of young people to become hooked on looking as near to perfection everyday by using the latest products and buying the latest fashions. This used to be enough but lately the next step to achieving perfection is cosmetic surgery. Everyone wants to look attractive, especially teenagers who are not only put under massive strain to succeed but to look beautiful and climb the ranks of the social ladder, and it seems that the only way to achieve the much desired beauty is to turn to drastic measures.
The words plastic surgery ignite certain thoughts into people’s minds. One may think of a celebrity such as Kylie Jenner or the constant rise in breast augmentation. Typically most people do not have the desire to surgically alter their appearance. Some however, feel the need to enhance their look as a result of insecurity, low self-esteem or bullying. Others have certain role models they look up to and would like to resemble their idol in one aspect or another. Adolescents and young adults are the most influenced by the media. Often times, a teen girl will scroll through her Instagram or even look at models in advertisements and want to look like the women pictured. Even if this means mimicking a certain eye look or hairstyle. Some girls won’t settle for a subtle change and will want to take things farther.
The human body is one of the most beautiful things that anyone can have. There is not one body that appears to be the same. However, many people think that their body should look the same as somebody on the cover of a magazine. But little do people know that the bodies on the covers of magazines are airbrushed, or are a combination of a couple of different people put into one body. If it is so simple to see that we should not idealize others bodies, then how come people do? That is where media plays a role; they make the average person believe that they should look like the models today. When people realize they cannot look like models, they develop different disorders. One of the disorders that Dr. Phillips discusses is BDD, which is body dysmorphic disorder. This disorder consists of people who are obsessed with how they appear. Everybody is concerned with how they appear, but people who have BDD are overly concerned with how they look. This disorder can socially affect them by not al...
From elementary school to high schools adolescents are always being told what to do and how to behave. Whether it 's by their parents at home or the faculty at school, everywhere they turn they are being forced to conform to what 's others expect
If a teenager or pre-teen is focused on particular celebrities and their goal is too look like them, it is not difficult to slip into acting like them as well, or at least being influenced by their behavior and perceived attitudes. The media abounds with bad examples of celebrity behavior, from Justin Bibber driving recklessly to Miley Cyrus parading around scantily clothed, and although every celebrity is not a terrible role model, a disproportionate amount of them can be found to have shaky morals and seem to have let the attention that they receive affect their behavior. In addition, the perfect bodies that most of them display are not realistic and in some cases not even naturally attainable, thanks to the modern tools of plastic surgery, augmentations, liposuction, and other cosmetic surgeries. The media too contributes to the unreal portrayal of models and famous people by using airbrushing on pictures and other editing that lead regular people to compare their bodies to images that are not even humanly possible. The Barbie-like models that girls compare themselves to and the ripped and muscled men that boys compare their bodies to are often completely unnatural and the people who have somehow attained them are,
A large majority of teens want to fit in and feel like they belong, but how far are they willing to go to fit in? The more they want to fit in the more likely they will be easily influenced by suggestions from others. During my second week of eighth grade, I felt like I wasn’t fitting in and that everyone was silently judging me and criticizing me. Of course now that I think about I don’t think anyone really cared about me, but I was more self-conscious about myself then. One day during lunch my friends and I sat next to a couple of girls who were known as the “popular” girls and I thought that maybe I would fit in more if I was friends with them. I spent the rest of that lunch hour trying to build up the courage to talk to them and at last minute I told the friendliest looking girl, that I loved her shirt and I asked her what store she bought it from. She told me that it was from Free People; she then gushed about the store and told me how everything there was amazing. She suggested that I should check it out sometime so I did. I, of course couldn’t wait to shop there. I told myself that if I shopped at Free People, I could maybe fit in with her and even be a part of the popu...
Flipping through the pages of Vogue's latest edition, 23 year-old Susan seems quite upset. She struggles with the thought of lacking the perfect body and delicate features in order to be considered attractive. Surprisingly, Susan is not alone in this kind of an internal struggle. In contemporary society, every other woman aspires to have the lips of Angelina Jolie and the perfect jaw line of Keira Knightley. Society today looks down upon individuals that do not fit in, whether in terms of body shape or facial attractiveness. This forces them to consider the option of 'ordering beauty.' Since cosmetic surgery is no longer a social taboo in America given its widespread popularity, more people are promoting it which ultimately affects the rest of the world due to the unwavering influence of American culture. Cosmetic surgery should be deterred in the US because it promotes the idea of valuing appearance over ability, gives rise to unrealistic expectations, and brings with it high cost to society.
To many, the notion of a teenager undergoing plastic surgery is appalling and unbelievable. For others, such as eleven-year-old Julia, a nose job was able to help her lead a happier and more normal life. To eighteen-year-old Kristen a breast augmentation is a traditional rite of passage of the family. She claims that she “just wanted to look normal,” and that after surgery, she does. (Sweeny, 2009) In these types of cases, cosmetic surgery can be beneficial to the confidence of teenagers in what Ann Kearney-Cooke calls “an epidemic of low self-esteem among girls.” (Sweeney, 2009) Whether it is a physical deformity, such as protruding ears, or simply a lack of something that other peers have, such as large breasts, cosmetic surgery can help teenagers cope with self-worth in a world where beauty is ridiculously selective. However, aside from the confidence-boosting possibilities resulting from teen cosmetic surgery, there are many reasons why it should not be taken lightly for an adolescent. Although cosmetic surgery can potentially be beneficial, there are also many extreme risks for teenagers, including medical complications and in some rare cases death, and thus should be solely a last resort after meticulous analysis for serious cases. Furthermore, neither the adolescent brain nor body is even fully developed.
In 2008 over “9.2 million women in the United States received some form of cosmetic surgery” (medicalnews.com). Plastic surgery is becoming a way for people to escape there insecurities, but is that the main reason why cosmetic procedures have been increasing in popularity over the years? Plastic surgery is “a reconstructive surgery to a variety of operations performed in order to repair or restore body parts to look normal or to change a body part to look better” (answers.com). I believe there are three main reasons why more Americans are resulting to plastic surgery. More Americans are feeling insecure with their bodies. Also, Americans are subjected to media that portrays what an ideal citizen should look like. Lastly, Americans want to be viewed as attractive. Thus, Americans have resorted to more surgical procedures to make themselves appear attractive.
Teens feel like they need to stay thin or fit to impress other people, rather than focusing on the good qualities they already have. Others wear a lot of makeup to try to live up to the images portrayed in magazines. Whatever happened to personality is the best quality? Teens are now so focused on how they look that they begin judging each other and forming cliques before they even have a conversation. But it’s hard to have a conversation with someone when their ribs are poking through their shir...
Many of the choices teenagers make are influenced by peer pressure. Sure, I had an obsession with many trends growing up, but later on in life I heard a quote that really aimed at my thoughts, the quote was "The shoe doesn't make the man, the man makes the shoe. " After hearing the quote, I thought about what I did in my life to fit in, and realized that what a person wears, buys, or listens to, doesn't create who a person is. Peer pressure throws out the thought of being who you want to be; peer pressure is more reminiscent of "be like everybody else.