Plastic Surgery Obsession
With increased media attention on beauty and perfection, celebrities and others alike are turning to plastic surgery more and more.
Though media and advertising do play a large role in influencing many people's lives, researchers believe that plastic surgery obsession is linked to psychological disorders. Body dysmorphic disorder is seen as playing a large role in the lives of those who are obsessed with going under the knife in order to correct a perceived defect in their appearance.
BDD is a disorder resulting in the sufferer becoming “preoccupied with what they regard as defects in their bodies or faces.” While 2% of people suffer from body dysmorphic disorder in the United States, 15% of patients seeing a dermatologist and cosmetic surgeons have the disorder. Half of the patients with the disorder who have cosmetic surgery performed are not pleased with the aesthetic outcome. BDD can lead to suicide in some of its sufferers. While many with BDD seek cosmetic surgery, the procedures do not treat BDD, and can ultimately worsen the problem. The psychological root of the problem is usually unidentified; therefore causing the treatment to be even more difficult. Some say that the fixation or obsession with correction of the area could be a sub-disorder such as anorexia or muscle dysmorphia.
In some cases, people whose doctors refuse to perform any further surgeries, have turned to "do it yourself" plastic surgery, injecting themselves and running extreme safety risks.
Read more about this topic: Plastic Surgery
Famous quotes containing the words plastic, surgery and/or obsession:
“The site of the true bottomless financial pit is the toy store. Its amazing how much a few pieces of plastic and paper will sell for if the purchasers are parents or grandparent, especially when the manufacturers claim their product improves a childs intellectual or physical development.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“It is difficult for me to imagine the same dedication to womens rights on the part of the kind of man who lives in partnership with someone he likes and respects, and the kind of man who considers breast-augmentation surgery self-improvement.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)