Plastic Surgeries Argumentative Essay

COSMETIC SURGERIES : THE RIGHT TO BE BEAUTIFUL

Cosmetic surgeries have been a debatable topic ever since they were first introduced to society. In today’s world, the quest to become beautiful has become a very prominent part of people’s lives. Even though these types of surgeries are relatively old, with the first breast augmentation happening in 1895, today they are much more common and have a much greater array of variations. While plastic surgeries can be a person’s way of achieving happiness and strengthening self-esteem, people should do it with moderation and sane-mindedly because these surgeries can affect a person’s health, they do not always meet a person’s expectations and they may cause addiction. There have been many cases

Cosmetic surgeries are extremely expensive, but people may sometimes spend their money and not be flattered by the results. Media mostly influences this conflict, and it has created the standards of beauty in our society. Eugenia Kaw, a cultural anthropologist writes, “We live in a very homogenized society and just being yourself is not good enough. We want to look like someone else; have the abs of Jennifer Lopes, the mouth of Angelina Jolie, the nose of who knows who and so it goes. We are never satisfied in being unique”(Kaw, 1991). In her essay based on research of Asian women, with a correlation with the field of aesthetics, Kaw says that people are not always satisfied with the results of cosmetic procedures, and media has a great role in that. According to Kaw, people constantly look up to the media-based ideas of beauty and hope that plastic surgeries will be enough to transform them into a model or a famous actress. But truth is, not everyone is a Beyoncé or a Penelope Cruz, plastic surgeries may correct certain “flaws”, but just like a watercolor canvas can’t become a charcoal one, a person’s body cannot become another’s. A very clear example of how media affects our perception of our body is seen in Toby Sheldon, a thirty-three-year-old male has spent more than $100,000 to look like the eighteen-year-old version of pop star, Justin Bieber. Some may say that doing another plastic surgery may

Jamieson Dale, a forty-year-old massage therapist and yoga instructor writes in her book, “If I had my time again, I wouldn’t have surgery. I’d have therapy”(Dale, 2009). After Dale’s first surgery, the removal of the bags under her eyes, not only was she unsatisfied with the result of the procedure, she also thought it could be fixed by doing another one somewhere else, and that cycle continued for fourteen more times. Luckily, after planning her suicide, Jamieson Dale had an epiphany and realized that she had to learn to live with the face and body she had, and terminate the vicious cycle of procedures. Moreover, many people are prone to get addicted to plastic surgery. Some, like Dale get addicted after never being satisfied with the results and have the constant wish to fix them, others, like it too much, which makes them believe that more surgeries will make them look even better. The writers of an Australian medical journal that deals with cosmetic procedures say, “Some people are never satisfied with cosmetic interventions, despite good procedural outcomes. Some of these have a psychiatric disorder called ‘body dysmorphic disorder’”(Castle, at al, 2002). Lately, there has been a great increase in studies of this disorder, because as the rate of cosmetic surgeries