Will You Consider Plastic Surgery?

Have you ever noticed how perfect the people look on the cover of the magazine's that your mom reads? Do you wonder how someone got their body to look a specific way? You also might wonder why someone chose to have the surgery.The answer is having their body surgically modified. There are many different types of body surgeries, and many ages at which you can receive the surgery to change your body.

Man with a broken nose before and after a Rhinoplasty.

Modifying your body with surgery is almost like the doctor changing your body as if it was play dough. The doctor takes the area of your body and molds it to the shape that you want it to look like. Some areas of the body, such as the nose, is easy for a doctor to change. A nose job might happen to someone your age if they receive a sports accident. The doctor can easily see what damage has been done, and mold the structures back into a good-looking, functional nose. The technical term for a nose job is a Rhinoplasty (1). In addition to having a nose job because it was broken in a sports accident, people can also choose to have their nose reshaped without injury. As you can see from the picture above, his nose is clearly broken. While it may be painful, it also might make it hard for him to breathe too. The surgery puts his nose back into a straight slope, which should make it easier for him to breathe, and also should no longer hurt him. Someone might feel that their nose is not the right size, which might cause them to feel insecure about themselves. The surgery could help them feel more confident with themselves after having it. Most of the time, doctors do not leave scarring. As a result, people wouldn't know if someone had their nose altered or not.

Woman before and after a Rhytidectomy.

Body modification surgery could also happen later in life when you're older. A common type of surgery is called Rhytidectomy, which is also known as a face lift (1). Someone in your life who is much older, maybe your grandma, might have this surgery done. The doctor can help your grandma look younger by taking the skin on her face and neck, and smoothing it out. This will help her skin to look less wrinkly, and would help her look young like your mom again. You could think of this procedure like the smoothing out of a piece of play dough that has started to become dry. The play dough forms small cracks in it, which would be like the wrinkles in the face. Once you move the dry play dough around and flatten it out, the cracks and rough parts disappear. When the doctor smooths out the skin on someone's face and neck, it too takes away the wrinkled areas. This helps the person appear to have young, refreshed skin, which we associate with looking younger. As you can see from the picture above and to the right, after receiving this surgery, the woman appears to be much younger with less wrinkles on her face and neck.

Sometimes, surgery is also necessary if someone is sick. Women who are diagnosed with later stages of breast cancer often choose to have their breasts removed in hopes that it will be the most successful way to beat the cancer. Having the operation to remove the breasts due to cancer is known as a Mastectomy. After the surgery, the woman will not have any breasts. To feel comfortable with their body again, they might to choose to have fake breasts placed back into the area where the breasts were once removed. If the woman chooses to use fat from other areas of her body, it is called nonautologous (2). If she chooses to have this, the doctor just takes fat from somewhere on the body, reshapes it to resemble a breast, and inserts it into the breast pocket. The woman can also choose to have the breasts be autologous, which are silicone pouches, shaped like breasts, that are put into the breast pocket to appear like breasts as well (2). The alternatives allow for the woman to have the best chance at overcoming her sickness, and also feel confident with her body afterward too.

You might be thinking about modifying your body now, but waiting until you are older might have you change your mind about surgery. The features that you want to change might be what you come to love about yourself. Maybe later in life you will not want to change yourself, but rather embrace yourself.

References

1. Globe & mail. (1985, October 15). The beauty pot types of cosmetic surgery surveyed. Globe & Mail. Retrieved from http://theglobemail.com

2. Schub, T., & Pilgrim, J. (30 January 2009). Breast caner: breast reconstruction after surgery. CINAHL Nuring Guide, n.p.

3. http://www.google.com/images