Mankind has always gone gaga over beauty. From the voluptuous paintings in Egyptian tombs to the airbrushed magazine covers of Hollywood icons, the beautiful have historically grabbed our attention and invited us to adore them. But today’s advanced plastic surgery is playing a pied piper’s tune of perfection that’s starting to become a little—well, ugly.
I mean, I understand the allure. Wouldn’t we all be tempted to lose a few wrinkles and look less like that before model for an ex-lax ad. But things are getting ridiculous. Take MTV’s The Hills star Heidi Montag, for example. Now, here’s a young girl who became famous as a teen for pretty much nothing more than being a sun-kissed California beauty—as you can see from the far-left pic from the Jan. 25 edition of People.
Well, this 23-year-old recently went in for a major plastic surgery overhaul that included:
- Mini brow lift
- Botox shots
- Nose job
- Fat injections in lips
- Chin reduction
- Neck liposuction
- Ears pinned back
- Breast augmentation (Her second)
- Liposuction buttock augmentation
And yes, the girl to the right of that young Heidi Montag is the “new and improved” celebrity.
“No one is ever perfect,” Montag told People. “But I am obsessed with plastic surgery and with maintaining my looks.”
We can, and usually do, point a finger of blame at Hollywood, but in reality it’s not solely the entertainment industry’s fault. (Hollywood’s elite just happen to be the ones with enough money to have full body slice and dice fests and then unveil the results on E!.) They may inspire the masses with their prefab pulchritude, but it’s we the people who are sporting a changing mindset in this area. And sadly, our youngest are the ones to be swayed the most.
According to Britain’s goodsurgeonguide.co.uk, 41% of girls ages 13-16 want some sort of cosmetic surgery. The American Society of Plastic surgeons reported that in 2008 over 228,000 13- to 18-year-olds went under the knife for surgical beautification. And the results can be deadly. Not long ago, a story came out about a high school cheerleader whose life was cut short on the operating table during a breast augmentation.
Now, I’m not trying to scream scary warnings of young people dying during plastic surgery (even though Ms. Montag spoke of a near-death scare during her post-surgery recovery). What I am saying is that there’s definitely something—be it our perspective on life and happiness or our mental and emotional health—that’s being hurt with this new craving for an impossibly elusive perfection.
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