Should Teenage Girls Be Allowed To Get Plastic Surgery
If your child came to at 14 years old and asked you if she could get plastic surgery, what would you say? According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), 42,980 plastic surgery procedures were performed on Americans that are 18 years old or younger in 2008 (Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery).
Plastic surgery is a surgical procedure thats done in order to repair, restore or improve, lost, injured or defective body parts (Merriam Webster Dictionary). lastic surgery involves cosmetic and reconstructive surgeries (Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery). All of the different plastic surgeries come with some type of risk and when young people are wanting to get a procedure done, most of the time it’s not for health reasons; it’s because they believe it will make other people like them more and make them feel better about themselves due to their low-self esteem. The three most common plastic surgery procedures performed on young Americans are: Rhinoplasty, Otoplasty and Lipoplasty (Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery). After knowing about all of the risks that come with getting a plastic surgery procedure done and knowing that most teenage girls only want it done to try and make themselves better, people continue to support the idea that they should be allowed to make the decision on their own and their parents shouldn’t have a say in it. Teenage girls should not be allowed to undergo plastic surgery for reasons that aren’t medical Plastic surgery has so many risks that need to be taken into account when anyone is considering getting a plastic surgery.
One of the risks that could possibly happen is scaring. Every plastic surgery procedure consists of being cut open, so when the surgeon stitches the person back up it will no doubt leave some kind of scar. Another possible risk with plastic surgery is getting addicted to it. When someone gets a procedure for the first time it might not give them the wanted results so they end up going back to get another procedure to make it the way they do want it. This can continue on and on until there practically a different person.
This has been seen a lot when you look at celebrities like Heidi Pratt and Mickey Rourke. No matter how safe a plastic surgery procedure sounds, there is always the possibility of complications and in the worst scenario a complication could be death. In 2001, cosmetic surgery was the reason for the deaths of an 18 year old girl from Pennsylvania and an 18 year old girl from Florida(Elizabeth Cohen). The 18 year old from Florida, Stephanie Kuleba, died from a rare reaction to the anesthesia called malignant hyperthermia(findingDulcinea Staff). The 18 year old from Pennsylvania, Amy Fledderman, got liposuction on her chin and died in the hospital two days later from “complications of a fat embolism due to liposuction,”(findingDulcinea Staff). When considering allowing a teenage girl to get plastic surgery, the risks are one of the biggest factors to base it on, but the reason that she wants to get the procedure is also an important thing to consider.
Most teenage girls want to get plastic surgery for all the wrong reasons. Instead of getting it to fix something that would cause health complications, they get it because they feel the pressure to live up to the unrealistic picture of what people think females should look like(Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery). There has always been a “stereotypical” way that women are supposed to look and when girls don’t look that way they want to change everything about themselves so that they can. Another reason teenage girls would want to get plastic surgery is because of bullying. Teenage girls are more susceptible to bullying because most girls are so much more conscious about how they look. 15 percent of teenagers who get plastic surgery suffer from body dysmorphic disorder, which is a psychological condition that causes people to be dissatisfied with their physical appearance(Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery).
Because teens suffer from this disorder when their bullied it would end up causing them to believe that if someone says something bad about their body than they have the strong want to change themselves. Its been proven, though, by many specialists and therapists that getting there teenager therapy and antidepressants is a much more effective way of dealing with dysmorphic disorder. Not only does self-esteem play a role in teenage girls wanting to get plastic surgery, but also the mental and emotional maturity of the teenage girl should be considered. Teenage girls lack the emotional and mental maturity to make a thoughtful decision on if they should get plastic surgery on not. Teenagers don’t think of the long term effects of surgery, but the result of “I’ll look better,”(Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery).
Teenagers believe that if they get something fixed with plastic surgery it will make their lives better in that moment and in the rest of their future, but in some cases girls have gotten plastic surgery and later on they regret it because people make rude comments about them and they go back to feeling depressed and bad about themselves like before they got the procedure done. Also there are a lot of surgeries that have to get fixed when the person is older. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, as many as one in five cosmetic surgeries need to be corrected later in life(Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery). Despite all of the evidence that has been presented against teenage girls getting plastic surgery, there are still some people who believe that they should be allowed to get plastic surgery. Supporters of teenage girls being allowed to get plastic surgery say it can significantly boost a teenage girls self-esteem(Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery).
The people that support this say that any attempt to ban plastic surgery for teenagers would likely be ineffective. They argue that surgeons screen all of the teens that come in for a surgical procedure to make sure they know what their doing and they’re not doing it for a bad reason. One reason that supports of teenagers getting plastic surgery give is that its ok if it’s to improve a teenage girls appearance and self-esteem since most teens do it in order to feel normal(Teenage Girls and Plastic Surgery). Plastic surgery could cause so many problems for young girls in the future. Theres the complications like the scarring, the addiction to plastic surgery and it could cause death if something went really wrong in the operating room.
Also most girls want plastic surgery because they believe that it’s going to make people like them more and make people think their prettier. Most teenage girls aren’t mentally or emotionally stable enough to make decisions about getting plastic surgery and don’t think about the long term effects of plastic surgery. Teenage girls have become more concerned with their appearance and with having everyone like them so more of them are wanting to get procedures done without thinking it completely through and many parents will allow their children to get something done because they don’t want to say no to them or make them upset. With all of the knowledge of plastic surgery, teenage girls should not be allowed to get plastic surgery for reasons that aren’t medical Citations Merriam Webster Dictionary. Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 2009.
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