2023-11-04 08:12:58
Tini Stoessel sings: “I know you like my strawberry lips.” Tik ToK launches a filter (called #BoldGlamour) that applies artificial intelligence to the image, turning “any mortal” into a model. Thousands of teenagers take photos of themselves “trumpeting” and upload them to social networks. Cosmetic surgeons’ offices are filled with teenagers asking to fill their lips with hyaluronic acid. These events can be thought of as isolated… or as brushstrokes of a picture that shows a particular and complex present.
Everything indicates that we are facing a boom in demand for aesthetic treatments from young women, around 20 years old (and some even younger). Surgeons say that a few years ago, women who were over four decades old came to their offices (who came to look crazy or get a “hooked” nose job) and that now more and more girls who are around 20 appear and ask for “lips done.” with minimally invasive techniques such as the application of hyaluronic acid injections. This substance swells the lips, but in a reversible way. It has a “return” because it is reabsorbed following a year of being applied.
“There is a big boom in lip fillers in teenagers. It is something very noticeable, which means that, unfortunately, in offices today there are 16-year-old girls who should not be our aesthetic patients yet, unless they have some important defect,” says Dr. Sergio Korzín, plastic surgeon and vice president of the Society of Plastic Surgery of Buenos Aires. “Frankly, it doesn’t seem right to me that such young girls want to make thicker lips because I don’t even think it’s pretty to have lips like that,” adds Korzín, who is also director of the Lasermed Clinic Beauty High Tech and the Uriburu Medical Center.
ENCLOSURE + MIRROR
The pandemic and the use of cell phones seem to have accentuated the constant gaze on the body. “With the use of so many devices, people began to look at themselves more. Work zooms, video calls with friends, social networks and etc. They caused us to be in front of screens for many hours of the day. And that is like being in front of a mirror constantly, we spend more time looking at our faces than in previous generations,” explains Dr. Cristián Leonhardt, a certified plastic surgeon and member of the Argentine Society of Aesthetic and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery (SACPER). ). The specialist points out that since botulinum toxin and hyaluronic acid fillers appeared there has been an “exponential growth” in demand for these medical technologies. And he adds that in the adolescent segment, the “lip boom” is followed by the demand for rhinomodeling, a nose shaping that consists of raising its tip.
For her part, Dr. Mónica Ibarra, dermatologist, member of the Oxapharma Scientific Committee and director of Urban Dermatology, assures that: “You can have full lips without undergoing surgery and there are less bloody options for the patient.” She also explains that among the “non-surgical” alternatives for the face, biostimulation (activation of the cells that produce collagen and elastin, essential for the tension and firmness of the skin) is on the rise. In this sense, she points out that “the new thing” is a facial biostimulator called GOURI, which “improves the stability, firmness and tone of the skin through the generation of new collagen.” According to Ibarra, “there are now very young people who apply botulinum toxin in small doses (“Baby botox”) to prevent the appearance of wrinkles and this occurs in both men and women.” Regarding men, she adds that “it is increasingly common that they request to make their jaw more square because that “masculinizes” them.
THE SCALPEL IS ALWAYS
According to a worldwide survey on aesthetic and cosmetic procedures carried out by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, “traditional” surgeries have also been growing in recent years in Argentina. In 2016, our country was number 16 in the world ranking of annual number of procedures. And in 2018 it had already climbed to number 7, with 287,823 annual procedures.
Behind these figures, might there be some phenomenon linked to social networks? We do not know. What is known is that every day, a million selfies are posted on the Internet and it is estimated that young people between 20 and 29 years old will send almost 26 thousand photos of this type via social networks throughout their lives. What correlation is there between this photographic consumption, the surgery boom and mental health? According to a study published by the journal Personality and Individual Differences, people who publish more selfies on social networks tend to have lower self-esteem and greater concern regarding body image, which might be due to the excess time we spend in front of a camera. screen. That time means that we see our defects more, we are dissatisfied and then… we want to have surgery. That is why the technologist and scientific communicator Santiago Billinkins speaks of “beautyocracy” and is sure that “beauty is becoming something ugly, a source of suffering and discrimination” that networks help to create.
Technology is here to stay, both in aesthetic procedures and in communication supplies. Perhaps it is time to think regarding how to ensure that all people (but especially the new generations) can interact with technological devices, without this ending in aesthetic overdemands.
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