I’m not against plastic surgery. I’ll probably get Botox when I’m slightly older, I know plenty of people who have had things done. Plastic surgery seems…. fine. However, I’ve always been skeptical about whether it is the kind of thing that can truly make one happier. Not anymore!
Anna North, over at Buzzfeed Shift cites a study by Jürgen Margraf
The chart above shows the average scores for depression, anxiety, and social phobia (all scored on a 0-to-18 scale) and body dysmorphia (scored 0 to 21) for the surgery and non-surgery groups after one year. The differences for depression and social phobia weren’t significant, but those for anxiety and body dysmorphia were. The group who had surgery also scored significantly better than the group who didn’t on measures of self-esteem, positive attitude, life satisfaction, and general feelings of attractiveness. And they were significantly happier with the specific body part they got surgery on than the group who never got surgery were with their “problem” body parts.
I think this irks us because we like to feel that you can buy neither beauty or happiness. But, well, that seems not to be the case?
Maybe that’s a good thing. We live in an age where, if you are successful enough, you can seemingly buy bodily confidence. It’s certainly easier to make a lot of money than it is to just be born beautiful. Or develop a sense of happiness with yourself (though I think anyone would agree the latter is preferable).
I’ll admit, I’d like to think that some things were simply determined by nature. There’s no really good reason for me thinking that, though. If we left everything up to nature, we’d be eating raw fish and living in caves. We’ve come up with all manner of technical innovations to make us happier throughout history. For that matter, people have been trying to alter their appearance for much of history – the first attempt at a nose job was in the 16th century – so it’s at least good that technology with plastic surgery has evolved to a point where it satisfies people’s desires.
Better living through technology? Or do you think that plastic surgery is a manifestation of a kind of unhappiness that has nothing to do with a bump on your nose?
- via Buzzfeed Shift
