How Young is Too Young for Plastic Surgery?

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A little nip and tuck here and there, some botox and fillers, and the ever so popular double eyelid surgery: cosmetic changes have become so common that procedures like these are barely even counted as “getting work done” now. Back in the 80s, 90s, and even early 00s, it was a huge deal to get something as drastic as breast implants and the ever so popular lip filler injections weren’t even a thing yet.

It used to be common that Korean girls were given full-face cosmetic surgery packages as graduation gifts, but in the recent decade, as cosmetic surgery became cheaper and readily available all over the country, girls in China are catching up. According to South China Morning Post, in 2018 of the 22 million Chinese who underwent some form of cosmetic procedure, 54% were under the age of 28 and 8% were teens.

But why has it increased so much? Many places the blame at the feet of social media. The increase in demand for cosmetic alterations in young people has surged in tandem with the increase in selfies, in a phenomenon coined as “Snapchat dysmorphia” in 2018. Indeed a report published by JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery Viewpoint by Boston University stated that 55% of surveyed plastic surgeons have said their younger patients have brought in heavily filtered selfies to show the surgeon what changes they want done.

Surgery Season

It’s not anything new that teens tend to opt for cosmetic surgery in their senior year of high school and right now, for some students, it’s that time. Starting college surrounded by people who don’t know what you previously looked like lets you have a fresh new start and keep the details of your enhancements to yourself if you so choose to. In China, this has become so popular that the first public holiday after college entrance exams has become the high traffic season in the industry. It’s the time when high school seniors are the least stressed about their academic future, and there’s enough time between then and the start of college for almost all major surgical procedures to recover.

With cosmetic surgery gaining ever more popularity, young people having the means to pay for the changes they want, and society become more and more nonchalant about it, is it really the kind of message we want to be sending to the young women and our next generation? If you don’t like your face, change it? Or is it more important to love what you’re given?

I’ve never been one to frown upon plastic surgery. I’m a firm believer that if it’s something that’ll make you happy, then you should go for it. But at what age is cometic surgery considered acceptable in teens?

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Photos: Pexels, giphy

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