Dying for Beauty: Is the Search for Looks Going Too Far?

I'm quite "into" following news, and, with the amount of times per day I happen to be on the Yahoo UK homepage in between going from one email account to another (I have 3. Don't ask), I do stumble on many a news story, both the usual as seen on the TV, and more diverse stories too.

One which caught my eye today was truly shocking, and faintly ridiculous, if it wasn't so appallingly sad in equal measure.

A 20 year old woman, who lived in the UK, has died in America. 

So, if you aren't familiar with the story, you're probably thinking, yes, that's sad, but why mention it.

Well, the reason is because, this 20 year old woman, with her whole life ahead of her, died after being injected with "buttock enhancing" drugs. 

According to reports, she and 3 friends travelled to Philadelphia after finding the people who carried out the "procedure" on the Internet. These people then came to the hotel which the friends were staying at, and injected the woman before leaving. 

A few hours after, suffering from chest pains, the woman was rushed to hospital, where she later died.

See, so ridiculous but yet so sad. That a woman, of 20, dies to achieve a change to her body.

The search for beauty- an artificial version, seen by many as necessary and attainable, leads many women and a growing number of men, to take unnecessary risks. Many will now go to the lengths of travelling to countries which don't have the same legislation as we do, purely because these foreign clinics offer "beauty" but at a fraction of the price of Harley Street. The net makes it easier to find these cheaper clinics. Do a search for "cheap cosmetic surgery" and you are instantly able to find any form of procedure and arrange it without having to speak to someone face to face or even by telephone. There are no pre-surgical assessments, no in-depth discussins and warnings. Just turn up, sign up and get ready to be enhanced, plumped, or preened.

Its now estimated that 1 in every 6000 surgeries worldwide ends in death from complications, but this figure doesn't put many people off. One such high profile death was Kanye West's mother, herself a doctor. She died in 2007 after complications resulting from a botched tummy tuck. 

So, why the need for ever more risky surgeries? 

When you look at a naturally pretty girl like Heidi Montag, who had 10 procedures to radically change her appearance and nearly died in the process, you wonder what motivates someone to go that far. Heidi herself has admitted that she regrets the procedures, and has had awful side affects from nearly all of them. Her breasts are so enlarged she has trouble sleeping and standing, her chin and nose require her to wear a support at night as they are collapsing. This is a girl barely out of her mid twenties, without children. She had no physical need to have surgery. he had no scars from ill health or accident. It was purely for a mental reason that she decided to let her body be altered to the point her Mother cried when she first saw her after the bruising from the surgeries had relaxed. Some have asked if Heidi suffers from body dismorphia, or whether it was purely to keep the reality TV star in the public eye. Whatever motivated Heidi to have these procedures, she is surely someone all young women should look at before they decide to go for surgery themselves.

It also makes you question whether cosmetic surgeons can be trusted to make the right call for a patient, or whether the lure of money is too much.

Or take Katie Price, who surely is the poster girl for surgery excess. This woman, who was no plain Jane prior to surgery, is only a few years younger than me. But she is unrecognisable from her former self, and friends have said her breasts, as a result of the amount of surgeries she has had, are starting to sag.

However, no matter how many sad stories we hear in the news of deaths, scarring and "wind tunnel" looks, some will still go all out to achieve what they feel nature didn't provide for them.

What are your thoughts? Would you have surgery, and what would motivate you? Do you prefer natural beauty?

Image credits:

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Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Image: luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net