We’re all at least a little materialistic, just looking at the average £17 billion spent on presents in the UK can tell us that. Even with the credit crunch coming on we’re still over-working our little plastic cards in a vain attempt to please everyone this Christmas; from the auntie for whom you bought those expensive Belgian chocolates who has just decided to go on a diet, to the mother-in-law that you bought that pretty gold necklace for who is, “allergic to gold sweetheart, I did think you’d know that, I guess you’re used to wearing that imitation stuff”, to finally your cousin’s, daughter’s, best friend’s first baby daughter, who has more fun playing with the £2.50 a sheet wrapping paper than the £15 deluxe teddy bear you bought her. And let’s not forget the lotions and potions that we fork out far too much for. A staggering £2.5 billion was spent on cosmetics in 2004, and yet we continue to buy our girls Barbie dolls for Christmas, so that later they can hand over their tired plastic cards in a vain attempt to look like her, the true plastic princess.
Of course, some girls take it a step further, some girls decide that not only will they burn their bodies for that “natural glow”, not only will they smother their skin in inch-thick make-up to look like “the all-American girl next-door”, not only will they fry their hair with bleach to give it that “golden” hue, they will stuff their bodies with plastic and poison in order to truly be the plastic princess that Barbie is. Because no-one can match those measurements; those perfectly-proportioned boobs, those legs that the phrase “legs up to here!” was truly meant for, that ultra-thin waist that even Dita von Teese would struggle to match, and that killer pout that makes Ken swoon and G.I. Joe murders masses of Commies for. That is, no-one can match those measurements without a little help from Doctor Jones.
Women had 91% of all cosmetic procedures in 2007; that’s 29,572 cuts, hacks and silicone implants towards “perfection”. The top 5 of these being boob jobs, eyelid surgery, face or neck lifts, liposuction and breast reduction. But that’s not all you can get, there’s also abdominoplasty, rhinoplasty, mastoplexy, otoplasty and vaginoplasty, (that’s tummy tuck, nose job, boob lift, ear-pinning and down-below tightening to us), that sounds like a lot of pain and very little gain, especially when you consider that 2 out of 3 plastic surgery patients are people who have already been under the knife.
If people are getting so many procedures done, it really does beg the question; is it a healthy quest for perfection and beauty, or is it an unhealthy addiction fuelled by the media and money-grabbing surgeons? With so many celebrities getting a boob job here, a bit of lipo there, and so many unhealthily skinny models parading around the catwalks and through the pages of beauty magazines everywhere, is it any wonder that women far and wide are thinking, “i want to look like that…whatever the cost”? How can campaigns such as the Dove “campaign for real beauty” stand up to the onslaught of images of “perfect beauty” that appear in fashion magazines and in toy stores everywhere, magazines and dolls which are read and bought by young girls?
Now that’s ugly.
Sources:
http://www.fairinvestment.co.uk/deals/news/credit_cards-news-Biggest-Christmas-spend-in-twelve-years-says-Deloitte-17967854.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-cost-of-christmas-701010.html
http://www.cosmeticsurgeryconsultants.co.uk/recent-surgery-of-2007.htm
http://www.cosmeticsurgeryconsultants.co.uk/femaleprocedures.htm
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/52092/plastic_surgery_addiction_a_body_image.html?cat=69
