Cosmetic surgeries seemed to have suddenly grown into enormous popularity among young adults, both men and women. Mostly common among women, this trend is allowing people to achieve an attractive physical appearance. Almost any bodily transformation can be achieved with drastic surgical procedures. These cosmetic surgeries range from minimally invasive methods such as botox to invasive surgeries such as breast implant replacement, rhinoplasty, liposuction, facelifts and more. As of most common belief, these surgeries are believed to enhance the mental health of the person seeking these transformations. With a new appearance, such as teardrop breast implants, you can experience mental health benefits including, improvement in self-esteem, confidence and more energy and life-lust. Some studies do show that self-perceptions of physical attractiveness do relate strongly and positively to happiness.
However, there is also evidence of an increased mental health problem among people who’ve sought cosmetic surgery as an option. This is also associated with the unrealistic expectation of these surgeries, in physically transforming themselves to their mentally perceived image of perfection. Another side point to this research is that males have tended to exhibit greater dissatisfaction overall with these procedures than females. Adding to this, the majority of women who had undergone cosmetic surgery had a history of mental disorders ranging from depression, anxiety, illicit drug abuse, self-mutilation to suicidal thoughts. The scientific correlation between the two is still unknown.
How badly do you think these cosmetic procedures affect such patients mentally and psychologically?
There is so far no direct link that cosmetic surgery will benefit the mental health of these women. Doctors say cosmetic surgery should not be used as a strategy to alleviate mental health problems in women dissatisfied with their appearance. So far studies have proved that girls who decided to go “under the knife” were more depressed than those who opted not to. They are also more prone to suicide. Remember, plastic surgeons cannot diagnose psychiatric problems.
So Cosmetic surgery doesn’t solve all problems in these patients. It might look like an immediate solution for body dissatisfaction, but the effects aren’t as fantastic as some people seem to expect. Women with these cosmetic enhancements might be happy or appear to be happy with the results, but eventually, keep rating their own mirror image the same as before – which might lead to another depression. Cosmetic surgery usually has a minimal effect on people’s self-esteem, so it’s completely acceptable to change parts of your body parts if you wish so, but in life, we also need to have the understanding that the changes are not always going to be satisfying enough.
It is also common that patients with these psychological disorders might get dissatisfied with the result of the surgery and also request to repeat these procedures multiple times. There is even the risk of getting addicted to such cosmetic corrections. Reaching this stage might as well lead to experiencing clinical depression, difficulty in life adjustments leading to social isolation, sadness, self-destructive behaviours and unreasonable anger towards society. The extent to which these cosmetic surgeries affect a patient’s life cannot be measured in a reliable way. However, it’s seen to interfere in their normal mental behaviour, self-esteem and their quality of life. So it is important that the plastic surgeons have the patients undergo a mental evaluation as a pre-operative session. They also need to keep them conscious of the possible realistic results from these procedures. This might reduce the uprising suicides and self-harms that occur post-surgery. It is also observed that many patients want to continue their psychiatric treatments post-surgery, making the situation worse. So it is very important that the scientific research community conducts the research needed to better study and understand these behaviours and mental states. We need to be aware of the causes and effects of these plastic surgeries and treatments, to protect the young women of our communities.