Media Sightings: Fake Boobs

I was browsing Glamour‘s twitter feed when I saw this blog post on their website.

Apparently, the blogger recently got an email from a Long Island cosmetic surgeon, who told them that breast implants, and get this, are the most popular high school graduation gift for girls today.

Surprising? Or not surprising?

Apparently, these young women don’t want a new car. They don’t want to have a trip to Europe. They want bigger boobs. So their parents give it to them. As a graduation present.

What happened to the days when parents would give their daughters things like new cars, jewelry, or trips to Europe? I know my parents would have given me stuffed animals if I cared about stuffed animals. Instead they’re giving me driving lessons, which I’m pretty thankful for.

But why give their daughters bigger boobs? Is it because plastic surgery is the in thing right now among both young and old?

The cosmetic surgeon wrote in his press release that right now the big thing is breast augmentations. He writes,

This is something young ladies have put a lot of thought into and discussed with their parents and then, after careful consideration, parents agree to pay for the surgery as a graduation present.

I’d like to know how the parents really felt about giving their daughters bigger boobs as a graduation present. Did they feel a little sad that their daughters were giving stuff like this priority? Did they feel happy that their daughters were up to date on new fashion trends? Did they feel sad that their daughters felt that getting bigger boobs was important?

More importantly, did they feel that giving their daughters bigger boobs would boost their girls’ self-esteem?

You know how I feel about this. I think it’s rather sick. It also reflects the modern viewpoint of today, that getting a breast surgery is something that is both common, normal, and even GOOD.

Many of the comments agreed with me. One woman said, “I think that’s awful. It shows that the parents and the girl care more about the way she looks and less about her academic future. Give her money for college . . . unless she’s a stripper, big boobs will not secure her a career!”

One woman said that the girls aren’t done developing, so this is a bad idea. I agree with her, seeing that teenagers still have a ways to grow.

Another woman echoed this thought, saying that she was really self-conscious of her breasts during high school. However, she graduated high school with A cups, became a B in college, and became a C in graduate school! She said that getting implants would have been disastrous on her still growing body.

Another commenter stated that she felt that getting this as a “gift” was rather irresponsible unless it was an extreme need.

However, this comment did give me pause:

Hm.

Are we in a state when we feel that getting bigger boobs or improving on some body part will give us a boost in self-esteem? If you’re really ashamed about everything, getting bigger boobs aren’t going to fix anything. You have to fix the underlying problem before you go ahead and get something else “fixed.” It’s rather permanent, and you have to pay for upkeep for the boobs every 10 years. If you don’t fix the self-esteem issues, you’ll just end up paying for a lot of unnecessary surgeries.

The fact that this young woman says that she’s ashamed of “EVERYTHING” makes me rather disturbed. And the fact that she believes that fixing her boobs would fix her problems… and that she has many things that she hates about herself.

I hope she’ll be ok in life. I hope…

The comments are still pouring in. “The parents must not have much faith in their child’s appearance or personality, if they feel this desire should become a necessity.”

In the end, it’s up to you, as parents or as girls graduating soon. Whether you get big boobs or not, I wish you luck. However, a lot of the comments I’m seeing still shows that the readers of Glamour at least have good sense and know what’s important and what’s not.

Runaway Eating

Started a new book . . .

Part 1 of chapter 1 of Runaway Eating: Not for Teenagers Only

Eating disorders is a disease widely known as a teenager problem. Maybe it’s a surprise to find out that eating disorders are not just for teenagers. Midlife women suffer from it. Right now, a disturbing trend involves these older women seeking treatment for eating disorders.

The book Runaway Eating by Cynthia M. Bulik, Ph.D., and Nadine Taylor, M.S., R. D. takes a good look at this trend. They also include an 8 point plan to help conquer this kind of thinking. (I will not go through the 8 point plan because there’s a lot of books to read.) This book, is, however, designed to help the reader make informed decisions about health, and is not a medical manual by any means. And if you are suffering from an eating disorder, it’s best to seek a doctors help rather than to turn to a book alone.

The authors define Runaway Eating in the introduction as “consistent use of food or food-related behavior (such as purging or excessive exercise) to deal with unpleasant feelings, and feeling that these behaviors are out of control.” The writers think of this problem as a sort of pre-eating disorder because while the behavior doesn’t match the symptoms of a clinically-defined eating disorder like bulimia nervosa, this disordered eating is marked by a very unhealthy relationship with food.

Often, this behavior is the result of using food to run away from problems.

Runaway eating runs rampant through society. However, using food as a solution for your problems is no solution at all, as women find out.

Nadine Taylor, a registered dietitian and coauthor of this book, suffered from a mild form of an eating disorder. She was bulimic, yet conquered it.

Runaway eaters are people who otherwise appear to be normal and in control of their lives, yet who have unhealthy relationships with food or their bodies that could interfere with personal relationships, threaten their quality of life, and set them up for future health problems.

By using food to run away from our problems, we find that our eating habits run away with us.

Go on any Xanga blogring or Facebook group devoted to people with eating disorders. You’ll see that they’re populated with young women and teenage girls as young as eleven. You don’t see a whole lot of people older than 30. We’ve heard of the Princess Diana’s bulimic tendencies, and all the young actresses who starve themselves.

However, the people over 30 with this problem are growing. They consist of women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and even older! There’s a dramatic increase in women seeking out treatment. It could be because of the growing availability of such programs, and the decrease in the shame of having an eating disorder. Hard statistics are hard to get, because most women don’t seek help until their troubles become unbearable.

diet pills

A full-blown eating disorder develops gradually. It doesn’t suddenly appear. Eating disorders range from mild to severe. Most women have a mild form of disordered eating.

Many with eating problems had eating disorders that they never shed when they were young. According to a review, half of those with anorexia and at least one third of those with bulimia carry their problems into early and middle adulthood. However, many women are developing an eating disorder for the first time in their lives. Why?

Maybe it’s because today’s typical midlife woman is more concerned about her appearance. She works outside to home, and worries about being passed over by younger people for jobs, power, attention, and raises. She dislikes being seen as an old grandmother, and may have a fear of aging. Due to changes caused by menopause, her waistline may increase. She’s more likely to seek help for depression.

The most important factor, though, is the stressful life that she leads.

Next up: the many stressful situations a midlife woman faces.

Corseted beauties

Part 2 of Chapter 1 of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

This section is a short history of eating disordrs.

You may ask if eating disorders are nothing new. Have they been along for a while? Really?

Joan of Arc

The famous French heroine Joan of Arc had anorexic tendencies. She starved herself to make a point, not because she was obsessed about her weight. Greek feasts involved bingeing and purging. This, however, was debauchery rather than bulimia.

However, during the 1870s, doctors in France and England were faced with a group of girls who rejected food altogether. The doctors were stumped over what to call this condition. Eventually, France won with the name “anorexia nervosa” which is used to this day.

The pictures that the doctors drew of these patients are eerie.

A proper Victorian lady

That was during the Victorian era. Perhaps it’s not surprising that that period marked the birth of modern eating disorders. Control and thinness were characteristics of wealth and beauty. Ladies had to be restrained (no screaming and running around. No indulgence! Eat daintily, don’t stuff yourself) and thin, with tiny corseted waists. Meat was considered carnal. The perfect lady had to be prim and proper. The picture on the right is an excellent example of one. Note the tiny waist.

These tiny waists were produced not merely by restraint in all things food, but with a corset, not unlike this antique corset.

The word “image” first appeared in American girls’ diaries in the 1920s. In this period, movies became an obsession. Actresses changed their identities and looks faster than people could keep up.

All the same, anorexia was not familiar until much later. Even in 1965, the term wasn’t used often. Eating disorders weren’t talked about. They weren’t normal. Strange. Rare. They were not seen as a disease but rather an exotic condition that only some different people got.

Karen Carpenter

One of the first public memories related to this disorder  is of the singer Karen Carpenter. By the fall of 1975, she only weighed 80 pounds. She collapsed on a Las Vegas stage and was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. Carpenter died in 1983. It turned out that she had heart failure due to complications of the illness. Her heart was weak from the years of restriction, and a sudden weight gain of 30 pounds strained it further. The coroner gave the cause of death as “heartbeat irregularities brought on by chemical imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa.”

The 1980s was the era of fitness and food obsession, Martin continues. It was during this period that eating disorders became more common. The famous actress and fitness trainer Jane Fonda produced many fitness videos during this time. It was unknown that her fit body was the result of obsessive exercise… and… bulimia.

Back to the present. Eating disorders are nothing new, that’s true. But now they take an extreme form which is unique to this present age. It’s not just restricted to rich white women, but to anyone. Black women and Latina women have eating disorders. So do working class mothers.

Oprah

At the same time, excessive exercising, plastic surgery addiction, and laxative abuse are common things. They’re no longer something that’s normal or not rare. Celebrities like Tara Reid are covered by the media. Diet and fitness, not wellness or authentic health, are upheld. Even Oprah is freaking out about her body. We’re conditioned to believe that the barrier between us and perfection is us.

This is a very modern and dire epidemic. While this world professes to give more rights and powers to those who have been formerly oppressed and persecuted, this world is sicker and more broken. Oprah started a school to help African girls learn empowerment and skills for the working world. At the same time, she stresses out about her appearance and binge-eating episodes. Her person trainer, Bob Greene, once remarked that Oprah had never learned what it means to be happy.

Queen Victoria

We see our mothers, aunts, and sisters hate themselves and their bodies. We learned from them.

The cycle continues.

The 7 million diagnosed with eating disorders is merely the tip of the iceberg. This book is about that borderline behavior. The behavior that’s hard to diagnose, yet involves self-hatred and depression. It’s not normal. You were never meant to live this life full of self-hatred, sadness, obsession, and depression. This cycle is taking away from the quality of life that you could have. It’s taking away our freedom.

We’re not our bodies.

Marti talks about a friend who was asked how she was. “I’m fine, just feeling fat.”

“But how are you?” the therapist persisted.

“What do you mean? I already told you.”

Finally, he explained. Our bodies are not us. Bodies are only one aspect of who we are. We make the mistake of identifying ourselves with our bodies. That’s why we tell ourselves that life will be good once we lose the weight. The fact that we are not our bodies means that life will not improve.

To a lot of us, it doesn’t matter if we have a great spouse, a successful career, lovely friends, and a beautiful home. If we’re 5 pounds above the desired weight, we’re unhappy.

We’re cheating ourselves out of a full life. What’s the use of getting three degrees if you’re going to spend a chunk of your time obsessively thinking about the shape of your thighs? That’s too much time. We only have 24 hours a day. We could be bettering the world. We could be doing so much more.

Makeover Needed?

Part 2 of Chapter 11 of the book Looks

Elizabeth Arden

Nowadays, women leave the house with makeup in their purses. Long ago, only women with makeup were stage performers, or prostitutes. In the 1800s, makeup was frowned upon. The general consensus was that only loose women wore makeup.

It all began in the 1900s. Pharmacist Paul Beiersdort developed the first cream that chemically bound oil and water. His firm is presently known as Nivea. In the United States, cosmetics’ rise to prominence grew out of the rivalry of Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein. Both believed that beauty was linked with health. As a result, they combined facials with diet and exercise classes. With Max Factor, they build the foundations of modern marketing. These two women used celebrity endorsements and magazine spreads to advertise their products. Not surprisingly, both brands still remain active.

I thought Max Factor was the name of a mascara.

The beauty industry consolidated. Unilever acquired product lines, like Dove. Estee Lauder got Stila, MAC, and Bobbi Brown.

L’Oreal is now the world’s largest cosmetic merchant. They reported their annual sales in 2006 to be 15.8 billion.

This industry invests heavily in marketing. They’re not above a little nonsense. There may be scientific breakthroughs now and then, but their money really doesn’t go into research. L’Oreal always talks about product patents, and new ideas that new research has thought up, but it stands that their money doesn’t go into research for new products but rather marketing and advertising and hiring celebrities and models to showcase their products, like Beyonce on the right.

Others use pseudoscience. Shiseido had their Body Creator sin gel, which claimed that its ingredients could melt away over 2 inches of body fat in a month without the need of diet or exercise. Sounds familiar? It’s not that much different from Nivea’s My Silhouette cream that basically claims that their white tea melts fat cells until they don’t grow back. No need to exercise, either.

Pantene uses a Vitamin B ingredient. This certainly attracts the shoppers. However, vitamins cannot be absorbed through skin or hair.

However, Dr. Patzer says, we’re living in an age where dreams are put forth as reality. We don’t know what’s true and what’s not, and we don’t bother to do research, either. Google isn’t much help, because there’s as much wrong information floating around the web as there is right.

Dr. Patzer states,

To forget this is to forget that a movie or TV show is merely entertainment. And while one may sometimes learn valid life lessons from art, it is art, it is artifice, it is not reality–it is a construct from beginning to end.

The growth of the beauty industry is fueled by the power of the media, along with the physical appeal phenomenon we’ve talked about in earlier posts. Advertising depicts the beautiful with the glamours lifestyles in efforts to sell their goods and services of every sort, not just cosmetics. This all contributes to the power and persuasiveness of physical appeal.

Sarah Jessica Parker: face of Garnier's ads

In our celebrity worshipping culture, the youthful appearance is held up as an ideal. We’re told that science and technology will allow to remain young, beautiful, and vital. However, this helps feed our fears of growing old.

This isn’t for our benefit but for the benefit of the industry itself, continues the author. The seek to control how we view and measure ourselves, and what we choose as important to us. Not to mention that the industry dictates what we must do to be the perfect person.

Yes, we do want to  look more beautiful. We want to be around more beautiful beautiful, and read about beautiful people. However, no matter how much products we buy that vows to make us look sexier, no matter what procedures we get to make ourselves more desirable, it seems that few of us really feel better about our own physical attractiveness.

Yet we live in a time where in wealthier communities, parents give breast implants to their daughters as high school graduation presents. 88 year olds choose breast reduction. Instead of tea parties, women have Botox parties.

We may say that this is just the way it is. But anthropologists studied a tribe in Africa. They wanted to see whether the physical appeal stereotypes of that tribe had been influenced by the media. They found that, opposite of our like of hunky men, girls liked slender men. Another researcher showed Men’s Health to the tribe members, with some spreads of male body builders. One old guy looked at the bulging pectorals of a male body builder. “Was it a man, or a very, very strong woman?”

Do we really need a makeover?

Or is it our culture that needs the makeover?

A Lust for Beauty

Part 2 of Chapter 10 of the book Looks

There is little stigma attached to improving one’s looks with a doctor’s help. Small, specialized clinics have sprung up, and most of the people who go to these clinics are pleased with what they get.

A waiting room at the Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat

However, many who have spent the big bucks to make themselves prettier do regret this. Melanie, 41 years old, was desperate for bigger breasts. She scrimped and saved, finally putting her car as security for a loan. As Boca Raton News reported, she doesn’t love what she got. One breast is over a full cup size larger than the other. Melanie also suffers from sharp, chronic pains in her left breasts. Allegedly a nurse stabbed her with scissors during stitch removal. This caused unbearable pain. Along with 22 others, she sued the clinic she went to: the Florida Center for Cosmetic Surgery. 

Another of those that have pending cases with the center is Mona Alley. She lost both legs to infection when her intestine was punctured during a tummy tuck. After the procedure, she felt really sick. After 2 weeks of the doctor saying that Alley would be fine, he found pockets of air in her abdomen, water in her lungs, and blood clots in her legs. According to Alley’s lawyer, the doctor had cut her intestines accidentally. Her intestines then leaked feces into her abdomen.

That’s not all. Between 1997-2004, at least 36 individuals died in Florida as a result of complications from cosmetic surgery.

Maybe it was bad luck, or not. These unfortunate people and others should have done their operations in a real hospital, not a clinic of doctor’s office. Between 1994-1998, 20 out of 100,000 died after lipo at a clinic. That’s a higher death rate than for people in motor vehicle accidents.

Olivia Goldsmith

Still, there’s the disturbing case of Olivia Goldsmith. A best-selling novelist, she checked into the expensive and well known Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat. She wanted a chin tuck to remove some loose skin under her chin.

Goldsmith had gone on several surgeries before to improve her appearance, so this was nothing new. Even the characters in her novels had plastic surgery and popped Botox often. “If there was anyone who should have understood the risks–and perhaps the futility–of burnishing one’s outside when one feels ugly inside, it was Olivia Goldsmith.”

For some reason, Goldsmith chose general anesthesia instead of the less risky local anesthesia. However, problems started even before the surgeon picked up his knife. Goldsmith had convulsive spasms, then slipped into a coma. She never regained consciousness and died 8 days later.

She was 55 years old.

The medical examiner concluded that Goldsmith’s death was due to anesthesia issues. The staff had failed to monitor her respiration and carbon dioxide levels.

The day after her death, another patient at the same hospital died of complications from anesthesia. The hospital was fined.

Even bad things can happen at big hospitals.

Stella Obasanjo

Americans who can’t afford places like Manhattan may go to Spain, which has the largest number of plastic surgeons per capita in Europe. They have performed over 350,000 procedures, trailing only Brazil and the States. Their clinics attract Arab potentates and world dignitaries. An example is Stella Obasanjo, the wife of Nigeria’s president. She died during her tummy tuck. 

Gregorio Nosovsky’s business cards identify him as an MD. However, he never finished medical school or got his degree. Nosovsky has appeared on TV talk shows as a medical expert. He and his brother Isaac, who does have a medical license, performed lots of procedures and made a lot of money.

Nosovsky was arrested after a woman told authorities that she had suffered complications after breast surgery done by Gregorio. Isaac tried to fix the problems, but he only made things worse. After this was reported, 35 more came out with similar stories.

What about the people who spend and spend on surgery and look like monsters? They’re still somehow under the delusion that more surgery will fix things.

Michael Jackson: It just gets worse and worse

The most famous example is Michael Jackson. Rumor has it that he has had surgery more than a dozen times. (Probably true, too.) The results were grotesque. (WHY? WHY??) Dermatologists think that he might have had Botox in his forehead and cosmetic surgery on his nose, eyes, and chin. He might have been injected with some unlawful compound to lighten his skin, and has tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner.

My grandma has tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner because she wanted to save time on her lengthy beauty regimen every morning. She wears heavy makeup, and she wanted the make up look without having to spend any more time on it. The poor guy kept asking her if she was sure she wanted to, and he was scared, but she was set on being beautiful and saving time, so she had it done.

Cindy Jackson: the living Barbie

There’s also Cindy Jackson, no relation to Michael. She wrote an autobiography called Living Doll. Jackson felt that her appearance was lacking. After inheriting some money, she had the procedures. After nine, Jackson looked like the Barbie doll she’d always wanted to look like. By now she’s had 28 operations, and her transformation, she says, is nearly complete.

*feels nauseous* 

28 operations is too much. What do you think?

Laws of Attraction

Chapter 2: Part 2

People do have a different outlook when it comes to choosing a partner. Some people look for someone less attractive. Some want a mate that is more attractive than they are. Some have psychological reasons for discounting their own high physical attractiveness. 

There’s the concept of entitlement. Some of us think that we’re entitled to certain privileges. Like the husband that things he’s entitled to sex because he gave his wife a massage. Or the woman who feels that she’s entitled to a wedding after dating a guy for about a year. 

There’s also the prestige factor by dating a very attractive person. Some men like to appear with a beautiful woman on their arm because it makes them look so much better. In this case, a woman is simply being used as an ornament. Remember that old dude who was like, eighty, but had a bunch of young girlfriends? They were all blonde and plastic. His name slips my mind now, but he’s an excellent example.

You’d think that any woman would be upset, knowing that she’s being used for that purpose. But no. She also wants something: access to his social circle. That old dude I was talking about was rich. Very. He had a huge house, swimming pool, moolah. Never mind that he’s old and grey. (Maybe he uses Viagra.) His girlfriends get access to his social circle… a circle that they normally wouldn’t be able to run around in.

How about power? Some people may exert power over the less attractive mate by threatening to end the relationship. Those who are very beautiful and KNOW it may seek a less attractive person in order to exert that power. The less attractive usually yield, maybe because the more attractive person is making them look better, and they still need to use each other. This kind of relationship doesn’t last very long though. Just long enough to allow reproduction. 

In the same way, a less attractive person may avoid dating a more attractive person because they fear this outcome.

Look at this Taylor Swift music video.

I can see this concept reflected in this video. The girl with dark brown hair (who is ALSO played by Taylor Swift) is a very attractive person. She uses this to her advantage. I can’t be sure but I can sense that she uses this to exert power over the guy (played by Lucas Till). Which could be why he’s not breaking up with her even though she’s ruining his happiness. It also disturbs me that the boy only realizes that he “belongs” with the blonde girl (played by Taylor Swift) until she takes off the nerdy glasses and transforms into a swan.

There’s also availability. This is a factor of both location and chronology. If a particular pool includes many desirable dating partners, each member will evaluate any other member more critically than if only a few desirable people were there.

Don’t forget the fear of rejection. There’s a chance that your partner will leave you for someone more attractive, and vice versa. That’s why people would look for a less attractive person because that less attractive person would have a less chance of leaving them.

If good looks are the leading basis for attraction in dating situations, where does that lead a couple whose looks have faded with time?

Willard F. Harley is a psychologist and author. He says that the question should be, “How can I learn how to be an attractive spouse?”

Well, how? You can go to the gym, and wear attractive clothing. Make the most of your appearance with cosmetics. Botox is always an option. 

You can’t deny that physical appearance is incredibly influential. Going back to the book analogy, a good physical appearance can entice people to read the book and decide the value of the book’s content along the way.