Surgeons aghast at plastic surgery app aimed at kids
Computer games offering the chance to perform plastic surgery are either “harmless fun” or a “new low” and “highly damaging”, depending whether you are a player — or a plastic surgeon.
The apps, including Girls Plastic Surgery Doctor are available — mostly for free — on the Google Play Store and App Store.
They allow children to perform “different life-saving plastic surgery operations, including fixing broken bones and damaged skin . . . using real medical tools”. They can “also perform surgeries for plump lips, pretty eyes, perfect noses, glowing skin and much more with expert techniques”.
The app Plastic Surgery Simulator — Surgeon Games states: “Every girl dreams of a delicate face and stunning figure.
“If make-up can’t give the beauty you want, then come to join this amazing plastic surgery game. You can turn into a Victoria’s Secret model at once.”
The London-based Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent body that examines and reports on ethical issues in biology and medicine, is shocked.
Jeanette Edwards, professor of social anthropology at the University of Manchester, who chaired the Nuffield inquiry, said advertising and social media promoted unrealistic and often discriminatory messages about how girls and women “should look”.
Damaging self-esteem
Dr Paul Skoll, a plastic surgeon at the Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town, said: “It’s absurd and a new low for humanity.”
Johannesburg aesthetic doctor Anushka Reddy said: “Games promoting plastic surgery . . . normalise behaviours associated with altering part of your body, which is highly damaging for children’s self-esteem and emotional development.”
Sankavi Naidoo, 12, and her sister Kaivalya, 7, have played with the apps under the supervision of their mother. But they they disagree on which are the better games.
“I really don’t like the app where you can do surgery. It’s a bit scary and not for me,” said Kaivalya. But Sankavi believes its “harmless and fun”.
She said: “It allows you to learn about the technicalities of the body. It doesn’t make me want to go out and get surgery. I just find it interesting because I want to be a forensic pathologist.”
Counselling psychologist Ingrid Artus said the apps “communicate the belief that beauty and personal worth are linked to a flawless appearance, which is an impossibility”.