In the pursuit of beauty

Is the pursuit of beauty the same as the pursuit of happiness, always elusive and never truly satisfying I recently read an article on a celebrity that had over fifteen face lift surgeries. When is beauty finally achieved, if not after the tenth time “under the knife?” America’s fanatical fascination with smaller noses, more ample breast, and reversing the signs of aging are completely obsessive.

Instead of celebrating the nuances of natural features that separates us from each other, and make us unique, we have surgically photo shopped our individuality until we all resemble the same design. Gone are the days of exercise and organic foods as a method of retaining the youthful healthy appearance, replaced now by the mini face lift, nose jobs, MACS face lifts, ad Breast implants. How are we to teach our children acceptance of our diversity when society set such unrealistic standards of beauty for them to live up to at such an early age.

Cosmetic surgery for children under 18 is a craze that has been continually sweeping the country, and all I can ask is, with all of the money we spend as a country on commercials and advertisements telling kids to avoid peer pressure and to remain true to themselves, how can we allow these children to surgically alter what has not even completed the growth process yet? Are we allowing the lunatics to run the asylum now? Are we so preoccupied with our own insecurities that we have lost sight of the beauty of youth?
A psychological evaluation should be standard practice, during the consultation phase before any cosmetic procedure to assess a person’s motivations and to ensure that the person is mentally stable enough to understand the irreversible, and sometimes unpredictable outcome of any physically altering surgery. The pursuit of beauty isn’t necessary at all, beauty exist naturally without force.