The rather attractive young woman waxed lyrical on breakfast television; thanks to new "smart" liposuction, her unwanted flab just dropped off after three months or so.
The rather attractive young woman waxed lyrical on breakfast television; thanks to new "smart" liposuction, her unwanted flab just dropped off after three months or so.
Not that she had ever been obese; in fact, she already had the thrice-weekly gym habit and was a self-proclaimed careful and healthy eater. The perfect candidate, indeed, for an operation whose incidence has risen by 90% in the past year alone, according to a spokesman for the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. It describes the surgical suction of fat cells as "body contouring", a reassuring kind of terminology for prospective clients whose lumps and bumps have congregated in the wrong places.
Once, women would undertake these operations secretively, arranging holidays to ensure their work colleagues would be unaware they were actually trying to purchase a ticket to extended youth rather than Barcelona. Now, in an age when you can let anything but excess weight all hang out, people are more likely to flaunt their surgery, seeking compliments as evidence of shrewd investment.
From the ludicrous mammary glands surely threatening Jordan's continuing ability to walk upright, to the more subtle erasure of Anne Robinson's life and laughter lines or the wholesale rearrangement of Sharon Osbourne, the many and varied procedures designed to halt the ravages of time are now the subject of unashamed public confession. Being nipped, tucked and liposucked have become little more exceptional than hitting the dye bottle if you have the time, inclination and not a little disposable income; so unexceptional that there is little publicity given to operations which result in complications or worse, as Denise Hendry, wife of Scottish soccer international Colin, found when her liposuction resulted in a perforated intestine and she almost died. That is mercifully rare, but more commonplace are people copying celebrity operations in the vain hope that the surgeon's knife will also transform the quality of their life and the richness of their relationships.
The extraordinary rise in demand for this particular form of enhancement is partially due to the screening of programmes such as Ten Years Younger. Once, a makeover show would have contented itself with hair, make-up and fashion choice; now people are routinely sent for surgery to effect a more dramatic transformation.
Yet there is another world of plastic surgery, a parallel universe not characterised by personal vanity so much as personal tragedy. For many people whose faces have been partially destroyed to remove a tumour, or whose appearance has been drastically altered by burns, the heroic surgery they undergo is not geared to making them look young or conform to the current notion of physical beauty, but to allow them to continue without their disfigurement impairing normal life.
In this world, motivation is never trivial, but the debate has a different tenor and intensity. Recently the charity, Changing Faces, set up a Scottish branch of its operation. Begun by a charismatic burns victim, James Partridge, it does important work in helping the adjustment process of people coming to terms with an appearance which may cause them embarrassment and social isolation. For this organisation, the answer normally lies not in the operating theatre, but in the mind and attitude of the individual and their ability to have a sense of self worth which is not reliant on external appearance. Clearly, this is partially dependent on temperament. Men such as Partridge and Falklands war victim Simon Weston are blessed with courage and positivity, and have used that latter commodity to great effect with people who have encountered similar adversity. For others, there will be the need to combine a shoring up of psychological wellbeing with the requirement to reduce the degree of disfigurement, often because of others' crass insensitivity rather than any shortcomings of their own. For the surgeons in this field, there can be nothing but admiration for their commitment to giving people back the ability to go about their daily lives again with the minimal intrusion from the ill-bred stares and comments of their fellow citizens. For them, there will be the incalculable satisfaction of watching damaged people heal both mentally and physically. I wonder what the comparable satisfaction quotient is in the purely aesthetic world, outside of the obvious ability to earn rather handsome sums of money.
There will, of course, be people whose breast size or nose shape genuinely causes misery. But, for the majority, it's merely the modern method of seeking the holy grail of eternal youth and beauty. And, given the skills and technology now available, the results can be outwardly spectacular. Sadly, there is no comparable operation for inner "ugliness"; no machine to suck out ignorance, tuck in prejudice or nip intolerance in the bud. And, somehow, you suspect, even if there were, the queue would still be lengthier for bigger boobs.
