Magazines show cosmetic surgery’s emotional “lift”
By Joene Hendry
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A survey of popular women’s magazines suggests articles tend to portray cosmetic surgery as an empowering option for improving women’s emotional health and physical appearance, despite the lack of scientific consensus that cosmetic surgery boosts emotional health.
Nearly half of 35 articles published in the 5 most popular women’s magazines in Canada contained information on the pre- and post-surgery emotional health of the cosmetic surgery recipient, researchers found.
Twenty-nine percent of the articles mentioned how women’s cosmetic surgery impacts men, Andrea Polonijo, a graduate student at Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, and colleagues report in the journal Women’s Health Issues.
Male views of breast augmentation, buttock implants, and vaginal rejuvenation are commonly used to define standards of female attractiveness and “justify undergoing cosmetic surgery,” Polonijo told Reuters Health.
As part of Polonijo’s undergraduate research while at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada, she and colleagues assessed 35 cosmetic surgery articles, published between 2002 and 2006 in Cosmopolitan, Chatelaine, O: The Oprah Magazine, Flare, and Prevention.
The most common procedures were breast implants and liposuction, followed by face lifts or facial profile procedures, such as rhinoplasty (nose surgery) and facial implants.
Of articles discussing emotional health, 59 percent specifically linked negative pre-surgery emotional health with positive post-surgery indicators, Polonijo and colleagues report.
Moreover, articles regularly denote cosmetic surgery as “restoring lost youth” and age as “a problem that needs to be fixed,” the investigators found.
Polonijo thinks “women should consider looking beyond popular culture perspectives … before going under the knife for an emotional boost.”
SOURCE: Women’s Health Issues, November/December 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related Posts:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Death rates soon after anti-obesity or “bariatric” surgery in Sweden are low, statistics show. “Most published series are from high-volume expert centers,” according to lead investigator Dr. Richard Marsk from Danderyd Hospital, Stockholm. “We have shown that bariatric surgery can be performed with low mortality on a national level.” Marsk and colleagues
Full Post: Low death rate after obesity surgery in Sweden
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Painful swelling of the arm or shoulder area following treatment for breast cancer — a condition called lymphedema - is more common in women who are overweight or obese than in women of normal weight, researchers have found. Lymphedema is a common, chronic condition that often develops after breast surgery involving
Full Post: Obesity raises risk of cancer-related lymphedema
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Tests show that certain MRI machines may demagnetize the magnets used in cochlear implants to couple external and implanted components of these hearing devices, according to a report in the December issue of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. Cochlear implants may be an option for those with severe hearing loss. It involves
Full Post: MRIs may damage cochlear implants
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Women with high-risk genetic mutations who have their ovaries and fallopian tubes removed lower their risk of cancer in those organs by about 80 percent but can still be afflicted, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. They analyzed pooled data from several studies of women at high risk for the cancers because
Full Post: Ovarian surgery doesn’t end all cancer risk: study
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An elderly person who has fractured their femur - the large thigh bone that connects the leg to the hip - may want to have surgery sooner rather than later, according to a study linking longer times to surgery to a somewhat increased risk of post-surgery complications. Dr. Rudiger Smektala from
Full Post: Delayed surgery may affect fracture recovery