How Much Is Too Much?
Dr. Fardad Forouzanpour is a Beverly Hills-based cosmetic surgeon who has gotten requests from teenagers for procedures such as lip injections, fillers, breast augmentation, and brow lifts. He says that teenagers, particularly those whose parents have had surgery themselves, feel that having a cosmetic procedure will make them feel better about their appearance. “They see how happy the parent was after having surgery,” he says, “and it reinforces to the child that medically altering their looks will improve their self-worth.”
For one 27-year-old woman, who requested anonymity, the decision to have liposuction at 19 is still one that leaves her ambivalent. “Looking back on it, I’m not really sure if I should have gone through with it or not,” says the Boulder, Colo., resident. “I was so self-conscious about my body, and the liposuction definitely did help. I don’t want to encourage people to resort to plastic surgery, but if there is one thing on your body that bothers you every single day and a small procedure can change it, it might be something to consider.”
Still, although she doesn’t regret having cosmetic surgery, she admits she still has body image issues. “It’s important for people to understand that plastic surgery isn’t going to fix your body image,” she says. “That is a much deeper emotional issue that you have to deal with.”
Forouzanpour agrees that parents need to make clear to their children that the decision to get cosmetic surgery is a huge life-altering decision that cannot be undone and that the reasons for wanting surgery – in cases where it is not medically necessary – have more to do with what’s going on internally than externally. “Surgery can’t fix that,” he says.
In other words, if parents don’t help their teens figure out why they are so unhappy with the way they look, they can end up masking the real problem behind smoother bone lines and tauter skin. And then one surgery may not be the end, but only the beginning. By following some of the common sense steps below and encouraging your children to look beyond “perfection,” you may be able to help separate their sense of beauty and sense of self-worth.