Plastic Surgery in Adolescence

Ricardo Rivera
The University of Texas at El Paso

Adolescent Cosmetic Surgery

Sophie A. (2004). Plastic Surgery Show Angers Doctors. BMJ: British Medical Journal (pg.509).
In the article Plastic Surgery Show Angers Doctors from the British Medical Journal, the
author Sophie A presents that Doctors and surgeons in Italy are in uproar over a reality
television show that broadcasts surgery procedures performed in front of the patients loved
ones. Supporters of the show argue that plastic surgery is part of our times and it is pointless
to pretend that is not the case (pg.509). The parents association in Italy have issued
petitions to ban the show from airing due to its graphic nature.
The media has a huge impact on teens and how they perceive beauty and what is attractive.
Teenagers tend to admire and compare themselves with those images that are thrown in their
faces.
Steinhoff Heike. (2015). Transforming Bodies: makeovers and monstrosities in American
culture.
Palgrave Macmillan: New York

In the book Transforming Bodies by Heike Steinhoff, the author exposes how American
media is abundant with narratives and media of body transformations. This can be
attributed to a more docile culture which has been groomed by marketing over a
prolonged time-period. This book examines iconic popular television shows like the swan
and nip/tuck, postmodern novels such as Scot Westerfields young adult fiction series The
Uglies are read as expressions of the heterogeneous biopolitical discourses that are
articulated in the American mediascape (p. 144).

In American culture, the representation of beautiful bodies through transformations are

often part of the makeover paradigm that represents bodies as beautiful, individual and
improves by adhering only to the predisposed norm of sexuality, class, race and ethnicity.
Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Bieber (2007). The Cult of Thinness. Oxford University Press: New York
In this annotation of the above source, the author: Sharlene Nagy through her research
discovered there was a growing cult in America, with numerous cases of bulimia and
anorexia. As an author of previous women studies and professor of sociology she
understood that women in this cult may not answer to a single leader, but bow instead to
economic, social and cultural forces that define and value females in terms of their
attributes.
Members of the cult of thinness will use whatever tools and strategies they can find to
reach their ideal body and fulfill their idea of success. Marketing the cult to pre-teens and
adolescents has become the primary target for fashion, fitness companies as many of their
products are directly aimed at promoting body insecurity.
Wegenstein Bernadette (2012). The Cosmetic Gaze. The MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts,
London, England
The author of The Cosmetic Gaze, Bernadette Wegenstein argues that a dark side of
beauty exists when a surplus produced by the cosmetic gaze, such as the ability and will
to modify the body in conformity or standardization. The appeal of beauty says
Australian philosopher Konrad Paul Liessmann, is its promise to happiness, for example:
if a man chooses an ugly wife, she must nevertheless appear beautiful, and beauty is
thus the promise of happiness, not its fulfillment. In todays culture, the concept of

beauty, once a marker of natures harmonies, is no longer clearly distinguishable from the
efforts , desires and even cuts and deformations that go into making it. Whereas the
traditional notion of beauty has inherited both an avant-garde revolution in aesthetics and
technological advancements with a license to cut, deform, dismantle and reconstruct.
Hesse-Bieber Sharlene (1997). Am I Thin Enough Yet. Oxford University Press: New York,
Oxford
Sharlene Hesse-Bieber writes in her book Am I Thin Yet that the words in vogue used at
her fitness club are tight and steel as in buns of steel and abs of steel, and
muscle definition is a common term used by trainers to urge both men and women to
sculpt their bodies. Our cultural mirrors have undergone a massive transformation since
the 1950s when the female body had soft curves to the 1960s where the hourglass shape
was replaced by the stick like figure. A fundamental change is taking in American
medicine, the rapid growth of for-profit hospital chains which has created the medical
establishment a capitalist mega center. Plastic surgery has become a $5 billion a year
industry and increasingly considered a part of the natural order of things for women.
Blood Sylvia K. (2005). Body Work: The Social Construction of Womens Body Image.
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group: London and New York
The author of the above referenced material discusses in her book that the experimental
psychologys theories about body image have become accepted as truths, providing
scientific explanations for womens concern and distress about their bodies. The author
also introduces the story about a woman who has been dieting since she was 15 years of
age and hates her body because she is overweight, and attributes her weight to many of

issues in her life. A discourse is woven into the fabric of our everyday experience through
popular magazines and other marketing mechanisms. Body image researchers assert that
womens painful feelings about their bodies are caused either by a perceptual problemthat is, women do not see their bodies as they really are -or flaws in the way women
think or what they feel- women have unrealistic expectations or distorted beliefs about
the way their bodies look.
Caslav Covino Deborah. (2004). Amending the Abject Body: Plastic Makeovers in Medicine and
Culture. State University of New York Press: Albany
The author of the above referenced material explains that beautifying the body can often
be achieved only by scaring it, sometimes extensively, and always, when incisions are made,
permanently. The breast procedure involving the most dramatic scaring is the breast lift or
mastopexy, which requires cutting away the nipple and the skin below it and sewing it back
together to produce a scar often referred to as a lollipop. Metaphorizing the mastopexy into a
piece of candy accords it a perverse erotic sweetness that may discourage repulsion. Recognizing
that scaring in surgeries is an inevitable side effect, and exerting control over it promotes the
surgeons competence and even brings the scarring into a positive light (pg.38).