Teens increasingly undergoing plastic surgery to avoid bullying
By Jeff MillsJanuary 13th, 2011, 11:00 amComments (9)
The View's Elisabeth Hasselbeck (who will always be the girl from Survivor to me) joined Good Morning America as a special correspondent a few months ago, and her most recent story looked at a growing trend among teens to have plastic surgery in order to avoid bullying. As I watched this piece, it kept putting me in mind of fugitives from justice trying to elude Interpol or something — it seems such a drastic step. One girl named Erica had been mercilessly teased about her nose, and she recalled banging her face against a door, trying to break the source of her misery.
In these cases, cosmetic procedures are undergone not for vanity's sake, but to end psychological torture. It is stated that around 90,000 teens underwent cosmetic surgery in 2007 (not all due to bullying of course), with the most common procedures being nose jobs, breast reductions, breast augmentations, ear tucks and Botox. Interestingly, breast reductions are one of the more popular procedures for boys, and if you saw Meat Loaf in Fight Club, you can understand why.
A child psychiatrist interviewed said that the problem isn't the nose, it's the bullying, and basically said that a young person shouldn't have elective surgery unless they're the Elephant Man, and going under the knife is always a risk. The question seems to hang in the air: is this an acceptable shortcut to a happier life, or the morally ambiguous skirting of an underlying problem? I think I know what Joan Rivers would say.
Commentarium (9 Comments)
I don't know where I stand on plastic surgery...all I know is that you really shouldn't have plastic surgery during adolescence; your face changes so much that you don't know if that new button nose is going to work anymore. Sometimes these things have a way of working out. And if they don't by 22 or so, well, think about changing it then.
I dealt with bullies making fun of me for being THIN and now I hear about them going on diets and getting stomach surgery. Forget them.
it shouldn't be an option nor a choice for teens. Their bodies are not yet fully developed. When I was young, I used to be called "King Louie" (The Jungle Book)... I'm still King Louie but a much better person now accepting who I am or what I have.
This is sad. @JS: Your point is well taken, but I think you've lived long enough to see yourself become the villain. Being confident in yourself and taking care of your body (no matter what body type you're working with) is far preferable to either changing for anyone else, hoping that your bullies are suffering from poor body image like you did, or worse, becoming a bully yourself. People, if you don't learn to love yourself, you're going to be waiting around for some random stranger or surgical procedure to put the love IN you. And who wants that?
I agree! Bullies are bullies... (they're like those suffering from BDD (only for comparison).. there is a tendency where they'll focus their attention to other body parts, which they consider to have some defects)... The root cause is not one's imperfections but bullying.
"A child psychiatrist interviewed said that the problem isn't the nose, it's the bullying..."
Word. This is like saying you can end race-based job discrimination by having all the applicants put a paper bag on their heads. The solution isn't to get rid of the race, it's to get rid of the discrimination and the attitudes that make it OK to be a bully and a bigot.
"People, if you don't learn to love yourself, you're going to be waiting around for some random stranger or surgical procedure to put the love IN you. And who wants that?"
Awesome and true. :)
This is certainly depressing. I was once the victim of bullying, because I wore glasses and I wasn't a normative sports loving boy. Bullying may be something that can never be completely eradicated and I don't really know how I feel about the plastic surgery. I guess I would not advise/want someone to get plastic surgery because of bullying, but I can't really blame them. I really wanted to get eye surgery or contacts when I was little (one was too expensive and the latter I can't use because my hands are too shaky). I also asked for and received a basketball for Christmas even though I kinda hated playing basketball. So, I wouldn't say that was any different.
It is just so sad it has come to this.
This is all interesting. I was talking to a male coworker just yesterday about being called names in school. He gave me a list of the taunts he regularly got. I myself didn't get teased. It wasn't because I went to some Utopian high school or that I wasn't a weirdo or was one of the "popular girls" or any such thing... I was just unteasable. And that's because *I didn't care.* If the "victim" doesn't respond, the bullies find something else to do. It wasn't something I was doing consciously, I just genuinely didn't give a crap what the mean kids had to say. The problem is, if these "victims" alter whatever the supposed source of the taunts is, the mean kids will just start picking on them for something else. The bullies START with the victim and THEN find the thing to harass them about, I believe. The problem isn't a big nose; the problem is taking the bait.
Spammer! you don't have a place here. tsk!
Now you say something