today I'm talking about the social impact of aesthetic procedures hi guys
welcome back to the channel as you know this is that little hiatus period
between the patient shoots where we don't have any actual humans to show you
so I'm just you know shooting it over here talking about some of my opinions
and today I'm talking all about the social impact of aesthetic procedures
now back when I was at medical school I remember having a conversation with a
consultant at the time telling them that I want to basically do this full-time
you know is my passion it was my dream job and she said to me well if that's
what you want to do why are you at medical school subsequent to that over
the past 10 12 years or so I've had a lot of people contacting me and asking
about this particular topic because it's become a lot more socially acceptable
and a lot more people are interested in the topic not just to receive the
procedures but also to perform them on other people and make it part of their
portfolio which is great because I'm all for inclusivity when she said that to me
though it did kickstart a whole cascade of things in my brain looking at why is
that I do what I do because at first glance you could be fooled into thinking
that it's you know quite a superficial career and maybe not that helpful to
humankind in general but I would argue that that is definitely not the case the
way that we look has such an impact on the way that our lives play out I think
it's really important to be able to address this for example if you're
considered to be attractive you're much more likely to be acquitted
of a crime you'll receive shorter sentences you
receive lower fines more considered to be trustworthy you're considered to have
higher academic performance all these things will conspire in order to be able
to smooth the pathway of your life so there's also a paper which shows that
after facelift surgery people are perceived to be younger more attractive
and very importantly more successful after they've had surgery isn't that
interesting if on the flip side you're born looking maybe not so hot and you
have a bit of an atypical face studies have shown that this activates a part of
our brains which is responsible for detection of threats so we respond very
viscerally on on an innate level to people who maybe don't fit the mean and
that's not even a reflection of our social conditioning that's just how our
brains work as a case in point I'd like to discuss Jeremy Meeks who is also
known as Prison Bae or the hot felon so here's a man who's been incarcerated for
armed robbery and also assault of a child he already has a child with
another woman to whom he was married when he met Chloe Green now his mugshot
went viral several years ago and he appeared in several different fashion
shows because of the rather striking way that he looks and he's now had a baby
with the heiress of the green billions and I would argue it's probably not the
personality that she's interested in that really made a big splash in the
media and we saw headlines such as hot felon Jeremy Meeks insists he's not
interested in Chloe Greene's money despite the fact that you know daddy's
got this really rather large yachts and slipping quite a fabulous life
that being said we'll probably fit in very well with the
green family if you guys remember anything about the BHS pension scandal a
few years ago and the collapse of the high street see also the beefcake bandit
who committed a series of armed robberies after being featured on a
bunch of romance novel covers yeah there are some weird things that we notice
about people so for example the amount that your eyelid opens and also the
curvature of your mouth is related to how people perceive your intelligence
isn't that nuts in a recent paper looking at whether surgery specifically
rhinoplasty surgery or facial aging surgery improve people's quality of life
the overwhelming outcome was that yes it did
so can you argue that altering somebody's appearance to make their
quality of life better is a bad thing it's not a superfluous want this is
something which cuts to the heart of social desirability and it has
significant impacts on people's psychological happiness and quality of
life interestingly in a group of 93 patients who underwent investigation
with this quality of life questionnaire the patient's having rhinoplasty showed
higher baseline levels of distress than those who were complaining of facial
aging and also interestingly this was also the group of people who were more
likely to have a general dissatisfaction with their face after the procedure was
done this is something that I've definitely noticed in my practice and I
always say to patients if you're gonna have surgery done you just find the best
person to do it for you you do it once and then forget about it
just forget about it stop obsessing whether or not it could be better or
whether or not they got it millimeter perfect because perfection doesn't exist
and you just make make yourself a little bit crazy speak
personally when I had my rhinoplasty done I was thrilled
I think if we've got expectations that it's going to lead to bigger changes and
can really be achieved with one surgery that's where the that's where the issues
come in in the vast majority of patients however once the surgery was carried out
it was accompanied by a lessening of concern regarding that feature so in the
vast majority of cases people do stop thinking about it also interestingly men
had the highest baseline level of distress and the greatest percentage of
increase after they had their surgery and this is in contrast to people who
have true body dysmorphic disorder it's a real you know it's a real struggle
that I have when I discuss this with people who aren't interested in cosmetic
procedures you know lay people who were maybe just know a little bit about it
from what they read in the media or online there's somehow this perception
that everyone having these procedures is some way affected by body dysmorphia or
they're depressed and well I have a paper for you in general patients who
elected to have cosmetic surgery do not present with significant levels of
distress or dysfunction so know we're not just all a bunch of crazy people who
feel bad about ourselves it is also known however that exposure to many of
these ideal images that we might see in the media like in magazines and so on it
reduces our own facial satisfaction with ourselves so if you're flicking through
vogue or whatever on a daily basis and you see all these you know gorgeous
looking people then it kind of you refer it back to yourself and you I guess you
would wonder you know why don't I look like that and it actually decreases how
satisfied you are with your own appearance so from that aspect I guess
we are all as a society locked into this sort of race to be perceived as being
the most attractive or having the best contour of the mouth or so on so that we
that we are the ones who will have that advantage and that's what all this is
about really it's about conferring an evolutionary advantage
well faking and evolutionary advantage upon yourself and on your progeny and
ultimately that's what facial aesthetics is about which is crazy okay guys so
that's it for this week I hope you enjoyed the little trip into my mind
about why I do these things that I do if you have any questions or comments let
me know in the down section below and I will see you again here next week I'll
see you later bye