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Plastic Surgery Shaming

Good Afternoon, everyone!

How is everyone doing? I hope you are all keeping healthy and fit. It's still incredibly sunny in London and it's so wonderful. There is a certain kind of happiness that you can get by being in the midst of sunlight. It forces the happiness out of you.

Today, I will be discussing plastic surgery shaming. I couldn't sit with my thoughts and I wanted to share it with you all. I was on Instagram a few days ago and I was scrolling through my explore page and came across a picture of a celebrity who is known for their plastic surgeries. This picture depicted them before and after their many surgeries and the caption read, "Before or After? ♡". Something about that didn't sit well with me so I decided to take a gander at the comments: bad idea. People were slating this celebrity. They were being disrespectful and some even commented that she looked better before all the surgeries.

Here I want to explore why someone might get plastic surgery. I want to firstly distinguish the difference between plastic surgery for aesthetic reasons and plastic surgery for medical reasons. In this post, we are discussing aesthetic surgeries, not medical procedures. In this, I want to also include other procedures which are not 'surgical' in nature but do impact the way you look.

There is a wide consensus that changing your natural body is a bad thing. Altering your body in that way is deception. On the other hand, if a person remains the way they are without any surgeries or procedures, they will get comments criticising how they naturally look. It's not a winning game. A person with a social following or in the public eye in any capacity will be under huge scrutiny to perform. They will be expected to look perfect. If they were caught acting like anything less, they will be slated repeatedly. Because they are in the public eye, their images will remain online. They can't hide from their imperfections. What's worse is people will point these seemingly normal things out.

What's even worse is the fact that body types and particular facial structures are going in and out of 'style'. The ideal body type has somehow become a trend. To match up to this trend, some celebrities feel it's necessary to go under the knife. Who can blame them? They cannot catch a break from disrespectful comments online and otherwise. On the other hand, I find it uncomfortable to support plastic surgery because plastic surgery comes with massive side effects and health risks. Furthermore, I cannot support a perspective of changing the way you look fundamentally to love yourself or have confidence. Do I think plastic surgery should be banned entirely? No, but I do think better regulations have to be in place. Plastic surgery is considered the 'wild west' of medicine because of how unregulated it is.

It would be naive to ignore plastic surgery as an industry that's worth billions of dollars/pounds. The industry is fed from people's lack of confidence in their appearance. The addition of other aspects like Instagram and reality shows, it's no surprise that people want to get a surgery done to fix something or another about themselves. But the mere act of getting plastic surgery shouldn't be something that should be shamed the way it is online and otherwise. People have their own stories and their own justifications and if that's how they chose to spend their money then so be it. On the other hand, what worries me is how unregulated the plastic surgery industry is. Plastic surgeons should be regulated the same way doctors and teachers are. What people fail to understand is that if the surgery goes wrong, it can be detrimental to your entire livelihood. I don't think your appearance is worth more than your life.

Finally, beauty is fleeting. It's not tangible enough to hold that much importance. Plastic surgery is simply a temporary fix to a problem that's deep under the surface. Plastic surgery seems like a bandaid trying to solve a fundamental problem that's to do with mental health, self-esteem and self-worth which all takes years of work to heal.

Those were my thoughts. I hope you are all doing well. What is your opinion on plastic surgery?

Sincerely Sinthu

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