Beautiful

Beauty (they say) is in the eye of the beholder.

That, of course, depends on who is beholding; last year in the USA, of 15.6 million cosmetic procedures carried out, 224 000 were performed on 13-19 year olds.

The national statistics are alarming for the twin sisters of Britain and America but not everyone views it this way; it does depend upon which particular seat you are perched. the latest audit from theBritish Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps), for 2013 recorded a 41% rise in liposuction procedures.

According to Baaps, there were 50,122 surgical procedures performed in 2013 – a rise of 17% on average since 2012. The association represents one in three cosmetic surgeons in the UK.

The audit which highlights an “impressive double-digit rise in all cosmetic procedures.”

Crossing the Atlantic the figures snowball and from the 15.6 million in 2014 there is a slightly unrealistic jump in the prediction for 2015;

More than 55 million cosmetic surgery procedures will be performed in 2015, predicts a recent study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). This more than quadruples the number of procedures performed in 2005, the study noted. Pushing this growth is increasing consumer awareness, direct-to-consumer marketing and advertising, as well as technological advances in non-surgical options, according to the study.

“While today’s economy reflects a slow-down in plastic surgery procedures, the specialty will weather the current decline in economic growth just as it has previous declines, such as the stock market correction after the 2001 Internet bubble,” said ASPS President Richard D’Amico, MD. “This prediction for 2015 is exciting.”

Not perhaps words that I would have chosen but to these associations it is ‘impressive and exciting.’

In 1970 Ray Stevens achieved chart success with his song ‘Everything is beautiful in its own way;’ when Mr Stevens was crooning away with the children cosmetic surgery was still in its infancy and even face lifts were incredibly rare. With the push of women’s magazines and increasingly clearer television the cult of youth beauty took a firm grip on the film and media world which invariably disseminated down to popular culture.

Social media has taken this to a stratospheric level today. Since time began beautiful women have beguiled men, from Cleopatra to Heady Lamaar enhancement changed little; but the estimation of beauty is extremely subjective and varies incredibly according to culture in its emphasis. Would we truly find Cleopatra acceptable in our day?

It is easy to pontificate on such matters from a male perspective where I can let my stubble form for several days without much murmuring from my lovely wife; if I comb my hair and look clean I draw few comments (if any) in relation to my appearance. But for today’s teenagers who live in full scrutiny of a huge audience it is increasingly difficult to rise above the degrading comments (which most of us faced in a smaller context) that bombard them even from strangers.

Now that the Pandora’s box is open it cannot be closed, we can never return to the simpler days. Fashion will always change and emphasis will shift, but for now we need a compass to guide us through this present morass.

What is beauty anyway?

A pretty face, a perfect body, a Ferrari or a majestic vista?  We need to instil at root level into our children what true beauty is before the media machine corrupts them; we need to retrain our adults to see with different eyes beyond the superficial skin that carries our true selves within. A thousand moralistic movies cannot and have not convinced us that a good heart is to be treasured above a perfect smile.

It will take a sea change in thinking to overcome the rot of cable TV kids shows and teen movies which progress on to the adult shows with their normalising of every profligate behaviour and the sneering mockery of settled committed marriage. If we continue along this road Western society will collapse under the weight of casual sex and disintegrating marriages producing parent-less children as many cultures have before us.

It isn’t working.

The commitment required to go beyond the first flush of infatuation to the ‘Notebook’ kind of love (look it up) is huge. It is a conscious choice and a decisive way of living that rewards us with a love which sees two people able to make a life of lasting and enduring beauty.

It is a pattern that works because the architect of it drew it for us. We need only follow the blueprint.