Why do people have plastic surgery?

Most of us are understandably nervous about the idea of having surgery. Having a surgeon opening us up is bound to be rather painful. Then there is the fact that there is always an element of risk, however slight, attached to surgery and the general anaesthetic that often accompanies it.

Obviously, most of us facing the prospect of surgery are ill or injured. We have no choice but to undergo it. Some people, however, actually choose to undergo surgery for no health reasons. Why would they do this?

More and more people are choosing to put themselves under a surgeon’s knife simply to alter their appearance in some way. This branch of surgery is often known as plastic surgery. The word “plastic” in this sense is derived from the Greek word plastikos, meaning “able to be moulded”.

This is quite an apt derivation since plastic surgery often involves, if not actual remoulding, then reconstruction of a facial or bodily part. Sometimes reconstruction surgical operations are carried out on people who have been born with a disfiguring birthmark.

Others are carried out on people who have been badly burned or suffered external injuries in a bad car accident. Yet other reconstruction operations are performed on people who have had a bodily part removed for medical reasons.

A common example of this is breast reconstruction after a mastectomy for cancer.

However, often people who undergo reconstruction surgery do not fall into any of the above categories. They simply do not like a part of their face or body as it is and they want it surgically changed. For example, they may feel that they have a particularly large nose, too pointed a chin or too small breasts.

It is their belief that having plastic surgery to reconstruct the offending part will make them much more attractive. However, they should stop and think before proceeding with plastic surgery. The problem is that their seeming lack of attractiveness may be just in their minds. Their nose, chin, breasts, etc may be just fine. The people may just suffer from a poor self-image.

Plastic surgery can be very expensive. Then, operations of any kind are not always successful. You might end up having a facial or bodily part that you find even less satisfactory than the original part. Also, even though the operation has been a technical success, your self-image may not have improved in the least. The problem may be psychological and not treatable by surgery.

There are people who so admire a celebrity that they undergo plastic surgery to try to look like them. They may want lips like the celebrity’s, a nose like theirs, large breasts like theirs, and so on. Their hope is that plastic surgery will make them resemble their idol. What they forget to think about is: Can they have a personality like the celebrity’s?

There are yet other reasons why people choose to undergo a risky, expensive procedure like plastic surgery. Some elderly or ageing people may want surgery performed on their face in order to look younger. Such people will get a plastic surgeon to remove loose skin from the facial area or tighten sagging areas on the face and neck, thus removing all their wrinkles. The operation may be repeated, but if this is done too many times the result can look too tight and unnatural.

Some people really need the skills of a plastic surgeon because they have experienced some form of severe injury. Others make use of these skills for reasons of vanity or to try in vain to hold back the ageing process.