Cosmetic Surgery? No Thanks!

I was in the hospital for 2 weeks and I remember it as a thoroughly unpleasant experience. My mother also required plastic surgery when her own (cancerous) mole had to be cut away and repaired with grafts taken from her thigh. We were both fortunate to be treated by very skilled plastic surgeons who do an amazing job of repairing faces and bodies disfigured by accidents or disease.

However, when we say ‘plastic surgery’ these days, we mostly think of an elective process where people (mostly women but also men) decide that a quick ‘nip and tick’ will make them look and feel better.

I read this week that it’s the over 65’s who are starting to seek such surgical interventions in increasing numbers.

I was both saddened and alarmed by this, because I for one, don’t want to live in a society in which people feel pressured to take such drastic steps to look younger. I would also argue that plastic surgery doesn’t work. People who have had it done don’t look younger - they just look slightly surreal.

Here are my reasons for being glad that I can’t afford a facelift:

1. Any operation requiring a general anaesthetic puts you at risk. If it’s going to save your life, then it’s worth whatever risk there is - but this is something you are choosing.
2. It could go wrong. By wrong, I mean any one of several things which your surgeon probably won’t tell you about. A while ago on a TV programme promising to make women ‘look ten years younger’, one of the participants had an operation on her eyelids. The surgeon took slightly too much loose skin away. As a result, she couldn’t fully close one of her eyes and it wept constantly. She also found it difficult to sleep with one eye partially open. Enough said.
3. You won’t look that much younger. On average people who had had surgery were thought to be 4 years younger than before they had the operation.
4. It will feed your insecurities. Having surgery to alter some aspect of your body tends to imply that you are, literally, “unhappy in your own skin”. However, there is no guarantee that a facelift will make you feel any more secure.
5. It's very expensive if you have it done by a top plastic surgeon. If you go for a much cheaper option (maybe overseas) the risks increase exponentially.
6. There are much quicker, cheaper and easier ways to look better, healthier and younger than going under the knife.

The programmes that showed women having facelifts to “look years younger “ also gave the participants lots of other help and advice too.

I would argue that it was those things that most contributed to their perceived (younger) age at the end of the programme.

• Firstly they were all given a great haircut. Sometimes they also had colour and conditioning treatments on their hair too.
• Secondly, they received style advice. The stylists chose clothes for them to wear in colours and shapes which flattered their bodies.
• Thirdly they were given makeup makeovers which made them look prettier and softer.

I think it would have been more interesting if they had taken two women and only given one a facelift.

Both of them would then have received hair, style and makeup advice and makeovers. I would lay quite high odds on the chances that they would both have been seen as looking several years younger!

So - that will continue to be my route to fabulousness as I get (even) older!

Just think of all the wonderful haircuts, clothes and makeup I might be able to afford in the future if I am not lining the pockets of some (already rich) plastic surgeon!

So - do you agree with me or do you wish you could have surgery? Maybe you are planning to get some 'work' done.? Or maybe you have had some form of cosmetic procedure and profoundly disagree with me?

I always love to hear your thoughts!

 

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