Models with skin as white as snow, eyes big as grapes, and beautiful bridged noses appear frequently in the media. Their flawless aesthetics have changed the standards of beauty and are causing many teenagers to heavily consider plastic surgery.
Over the last few decades media has flourished and it has been exposing a notion of “Lookism” to many, including students in their formative years. Lookism is a term referring to “discrimination or prejudice based on personal appearance.” Students brainwashed by this concept compare themselves to models presented in the media, and are discouraged by their appearance. Therefore, it has become normal for teenagers to focus excessively on their outside appearance. This is also because how they look is closely related to how they are treated by their peers. Even at such a young age, many teens choose to apply make up or in extreme cases, receive plastic surgery.
Teens that choose to have plastic surgery tend to get double eyelid surgery, since it is the safest treatment and the best solution for the small-eye complex that is common among many Asians. Other types of plastic surgery mostly involve trimming of the bones, but are risky for teens because trimming the yet under-developed bones can cause permanent damage and may require additional surgery in the future.
According to 15 year-old-girl Christine Lee, “Plastic surgery is unnecessary tat the stage of puberty, since teens are still growing; nobody can predict how that person will turn out as a matured adult.” When asked about her thoughts on plastic surgery, 18 year-old-girl Meena Huh stated, “I think plastic surgery is okay to do it as long as students get their parent’s permission. One thing that bothers me though is an absence of confidence in themselves only because of their looks and having an intransigent concept that receiving plastic surgery is the only way to be confident.”
As shown in the picture, many teenage girls want plastic surgery to have big eyes and beautiful bridged nose like TV stars. However, one thing teenage girls need to remember is that all guys do not necessarily prefer girls who look gorgeous, but are attracted to girls who are fair in personality.
Interesting article! I never knew there was a term like “lookism” so I really like how you provided specific details! Also I think it would have been better to state in the beginning that teenage girls of Asian descent are considering plastic surgery because referring to ‘teenage girls’ as a whole is somewhat misleading. Including data/facts of girls getting plastic surgery would have made the article stronger as well. Anyways, good job 🙂
I would have liked to have seen a quote from a person who actually underwent plastic surgery.
Also, I didn’t really understand your last paragraph. It seemed as though you were saying that girls should have a good personality in order to attract guys, which I don’t agree with. In my honest opinion, girls should be whoever and whatever they want to be, and not do anything in order to “get a guy” – this, to me, means both physical and personality alterations. I think this article was good in that it was stating that girls should love their physical selves more and not depend on it to “get a guy,” but I think it could have gone a step further in saying that girls are not obliged to change themselves, in any way, to get a guy to like them.