Cosmetic Surgery: I've spent six weeks researching everything there is to know but has it changed my mind?

The exposure to social media influencers, Love Island stars and TikTok normalises a beauty standard that just isn’t normal. I look at Love Island competitors the same age as me looking 10 years older after being injected with plastic. To me, that just is not beauty and shouldn’t be promoted to young people as being beautiful.

It’s also been surprising to hear the amount of people who’ve gone on to get their fillers dissolved after having them at such a young age. Perhaps I’m supposed to feel more sympathy for these people, but I just don’t find anything heroic about their decision to do this.

After watching Kylie Jenner reduced to tears over the backlash she’s received on social media for her surgeries, her emotional outburst still feels empty to me. It’s awful for someone to experience trolling on social media, but succumbing to the pressures of fillers in the first place and parading your journey with them online, what can you expect?

Expert plastic surgeon Mr Naveen Cavale spoke about the importance of young people still being mature enough to understand the implications of the surgery they’re undergoing. I may have thought I was mature at 18, but since living on my own at university I can wholeheartedly say I wasn’t. This ‘trend’ of getting fillers dissolved is a blatant waste of time and proves that it shouldn’t have been done in the first place.

I’d never considered the gender divide of cosmetic surgery, as there is an overwhelming proportion of women undergoing procedures in comparison to men. However, after researching the impacts of the fitness industry on cosmetic surgery for young men, there is no doubt this pressure is just as prominent for men as it is for women.

Masculinity is wrongly associated with strength and muscle, making men feel they have to fit into this category in order to feel and look masculine. People more commonly accept cosmetic surgery amongst women, yet there is a definite stigma surrounding men who have it, despite them facing the same pressures women do. This again shows the toxicity of cosmetic surgery that I can’t understand.

What’s most stuck out to me during this project is the constant reference to a pressure of perfection that is just unattainable. Everyone I interviewed spoke about feeling like there’s a  certain way they should look, regardless of whether they would undergo cosmetic surgery themselves. Cosmetic surgery comes hand-in-hand with issues surrounding body image, as both a solution and a fuel to the problem.

I really can sympathise with someone having cosmetic surgery to help their self-confidence over something they’ve been struggling with for a long time, but this ‘tweakments’ trend to edge ever so slightly closer into what society deems as ‘perfection’ is a waste. There is no such thing as ‘perfect’ and there needs to be a bigger understanding of this amongst young people. 

I remain just as stubborn towards it as I was at the beginning. If anything, even worse. I may not have a face made for TikTok but to be honest, I don’t care. I completely believe that you have the right to make decisions about your own body, but it needs to be clear that the decisions are being made for you and only you. 

So at the end of six weeks researching, writing, interviewing experts and speaking to influencers about cosmetic surgery, have I changed my mind? No you still wouldn’t find me anywhere near it.