Loving Yourself Enough to Consider Cosmetic Surgery: Is It Okay?

Cosmetic surgery is where a person chooses to have an operation or invasive medical procedure to change their physical appearance for cosmetic rather than medical reasons, according to the Royal College of Surgeons. Examples of this is seen in breast enlargements, the famous Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) or Lip fillers. Today we see the uprise of many people, especially young people not hesitating to go under the knife to change their physical appearance. The fact that there has been an uprise of these surgeries, brings upon many questions such as, is society doing enough to encourage the true depiction of self love and are young people really following the right “influencers” when it comes to social media ? 

Not only this, but is it worth risking these changes of your body to go under very severe and physical damages ? 

It is undeniable that the ideal image of the female body is constantly going through what can be described as an never ending epidemic cycle of change, from females in the 1950’s having the desire of wanting to be very curvy, then in the 1970s to be “fit” and slightly curvy, now moving onto the 1990s where it was fashionable to have what is known as the “supermodel butt” which was considerably small and flat. When looking at today's trending body standards curves are now back in, where the “supermodel butt” is now considered as unfashionable. We now have celebrities, like Nikki Minaji and Kim kardashian arguably setting the trend of how the desirable female body should look like. 

The desirable female figure can be promoted on various social media platforms through the encouragement of celebrities and social media influencers/ models. It is understandable as to why  social media influencers constantly have to keep up with the constant change of “image trends” as some earn a living from just posting a picture of themselves. Daily mail  found that social media influencers can make up to £117.48 an hour. Furthermore, Glassdoor  claims that a social media influencer can make an average of £35,059 a year, however this can range from this to £45,000 the highest or more. Social media is something that has become a dominant norm in our lives, for various reasons, such as communicating with one another, finding out world affairs or even business. Nonetheless drawing the focus onto the influence of social media models/influencers, this is something that young people often come across on a daily basis. When we see social media models/influencers we see beauty, we see inspiration and we see the desire to be like them. Yet, it is not often that we see the regret that some of these models/influencers/celebrities go through. In 2022 the Hiphop rapper Cardi B, told her fans how she regretted having her biopolymers “butt shots” and how, it should be avoided enhancing your features. Even Khole Kardashian, talks about the negative effects of her going under the knife.

From a female perspective, unfortunately looks tend to be a prominent factor as to how we are viewed in society, with young girls looking up to social media models/ influencers you can find that they tend to begin to disregard their own natural beauty and tend to try and look like something that they are not. Losing self confidence and becoming confident in something that they are not. This raises the question, of what is self love ? Is self love being able to recognise one's own natural beauty, through the constant change of beauty standards, or is self love being happy with the evolution of  an individual's body and  appreciating those changes ? Argumentatively, in other words, being able to love something that is not really you but nonetheless you have made it become you. Many interpretations can be derived from the meaning of self love, but how do we as a community ensure that young people do not have to face the pressure of changing themselves into someone that  they are not, just to be expected into society. Many would say perhaps reduce the interaction that they have with social media, but in reality we all know that this is a  ludicrous suggestion as it is knowledgeable that social media has now become a norm in people's everyday lives. Perhaps there needs to be someone telling these girls that they are perfect the way they are and what is often deemed as having the desirable face or body is not in fact real. I believe that social media/influencers that have a large target audience of young girls should make aware if  they have had work done, therefore young girls do not have to end up feeling like they are not beautiful, because the truth is without all the surgery, these models most likely look like them too.

Printed by Nya'Lay