ISSUES
: Body Confidence
Chapter 1: Body Image
23
by Carrot Dating is: “There’s only
one method of manipulation that
has stood the test of time: bribery.
It’s a concept so simple that even
animals understand – give a dog
a bone, and it will obey. Give a
woman a present, and she’ll…”)
One of the bribes put forward as an
option is the offer of plastic surgery
to potential female partners.
At this point, I stopped searching,
took a breath, made myself a strong
cup of tea, and ate a custard cream.
One hour later…
Looking at the range of apps
available was enlightening: in the
course of an hour, I’m sure that I’ve
only skimmed the surface of what’s
available. What I’ve identified in
this blog therefore clearly isn’t any
better or worse than other apps I
haven’t written about – they’re just
simply those which I found first.
To complete my mini research
exercise, I looked for evidence as
to the effect of apps on people’s
motivation to actually undergo
cosmetic procedures. I came up
short. I found studies that report on
the effect of reality TV, magazine
consumption, and aspiring to
film star looks. The proliferation
of apps and their influence on
those who access them, however,
appears to be an area which
hasn’t been addressed empirically
by researchers. Given that many
people have smartphones and
tablets clamped to their sides 24/7,
this gap in evidence is something
that needs to be addressed, and
addressed soon.
26 October 2015
Ö
The above information was
reprinted with kind permission
from the Nuffield Council on
Bioethics. Please visit www.
nuffieldbioethics.org/project/
cosmetic-procedures/
for
further information.
© Nuffield Council on
Bioethics 2016
100 years of plastic surgery
Plastic surgery celebrates its 100th birthday this year. We
examine how a medical procedure to treat soldiers in the
trenches ended up being used to augment 50,000 Brazilians’
buttocks.
By Harry Wallop
A
n astonishing 20 million
plastic surgery procedures
around the world were
undertaken last year, according to
new figures published this week.
They included 50,000 pairs of
buttocks being augmented in Brazil;
107,000 pairs of eyes being widened
in South Korea – many of them to be
made more ‘western’; 1.35 million
Americans having their breasts
enlarged and 705 British men have
their moobs removed. Don’t ask
about all the labiaplasty in Germany.
These statistics, published by the
International Society of Aesthetic
Plastic Surgery, show how far the
concept of beauty has changed in
the last generation, and hint at how,
in many cultures, going to a cosmetic
surgeon, rather than a cosmetics
counter, is a guaranteed way to
reduce the signs of ageing.
The figures would horrify Harold
Gillies, who 100 years ago started a
field of medicine forged in the bloody
trenches of Flanders: modern plastic
surgery.
The idea of grafting skin from one
part of the body to another dates
back centuries: ‘plastic surgery’
as a term was coined in the 1830s
(from the Greek, plastikos – to be
moulded), decades before ‘plastic’
became a word to describe man-
made materials. But as Roger Green,
archivist for the British Association of
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons
(BAPRAS), and himself a surgeon,
says, the birth of modern plastic
surgery can be dated to 1915.
Gillies was an ear, nose and throat
surgeon, who volunteered to serve in
the Red Cross in Belgium. “He saw
new injuries that were pretty horrific,”
says Green. Many soldiers had their
faces hideously disfigured by shrapnel
as they poked their heads above the
parapet.
Too severe to rectify with a skin graft,
Gillies developed a technique called
the tube pedicle, which involved
cutting a strip of flesh from a healthy
part of the body – usually the chest
or forehead – but leaving one end
still attached. The strip of skin was
then ‘swung’ into the new area. The
flap was folded in on itself, enclosing
all the living tissue and blood supply,
which prevented infection. The result
looked bizarre, but it worked.
During the Battle of the Somme in
1917, Gillies treated 2,000 soldiers,
mostly in this way.
During the Second World War,
Archibald McIndoe, a pupil of Gillies,
made further huge strides treating
burnt airmen.
But it was not just McIndoe’s
technological advances, it was his
whole approach, that were novel.
“While Gillies’s mantra was ‘as long
as I can fix someone, that’s OK’,
McIndoe was more bothered about
the psychology of patients,” says
Professor Tony Metcalfe, director
of research at the Blond McIndoe
Research Foundation. East Grinstead,
where McIndoe’s hospital was based,
became “the town that didn’t stare”.
This right to a ‘normal’ life is
something another pupil of Gillies has
also pioneered, but for a very different
type of patient. In Rio de Janeiro, Ivo
Pitanguy, now 91, is called simply
‘maestro’ for his work in helping to
popularise cosmetic surgery among
not just the yacht-owning classes,
but slum dwellers too. Last year over
1.3 million had work done in Brazil.
“Aesthetic surgery brings the desired
serenity to those that suffer by being
betrayed by nature,” he has said.
Pitanguy argues that cosmetic
surgery heals ailments such as low
self-esteem, an idea that has certainly
gained traction in some cultures – in
particular highly aspirational and fast-
