Lunch-break facelifts? I am frowning
Judy Murray on the latest cosmetic surgery
I was back in China last week for the Women’s Tennis Association finals in Shenzhen where I was doing some community engagement work. After a long flight and being on my feet all day,
I was feeling it in my lower back and legs.
I’m not getting any younger and I can get a bit of stiffness so, in addition to my 10 minutes of daily yoga stretches and joint supplements, I sometimes go for a massage. So I headed for one while over there. The massage therapist’s attention to detail was excellent but when she advised me, “you have a lot of stress in your stomach”, I had to confess: “It’s probably just cake.”
My dentist used to have two rooms within the clinic for carrying out dental work – now one of them is instead used for cosmetic procedures such as Botox. The practice is responding to the demand that’s everywhere now, and of course it’s very lucrative. The need to look perfect has been created by social and mainstream media, breeding an Insta-generation which is always selfie-ready.
It puts a horrible amount of pressure on people, particularly younger folk, and when a 23-year-old tells you they’ve had Botox for their “frown lines”, you really have to wonder what’s going on in the world. When you’re starting to freeze your muscles from such a young age, how can we know the long-term effects over 40, 50-plus years?
Now health regulators are threatening to shut down beauty clinics that perform unsafe surgeries and procedures after finding one in five are putting clients at risk. There must be something about the “cosmetic” label that makes people feel as though it’s not a serious or risky thing.
When clinics promote procedures like “lunchtime facelifts”, it only adds to the illusion of a minor, everyday event that is nothing to worry about. But the increasing numbers who suffer complications and worse, suggests otherwise. Just because a treatment is dressed up as cosmetic, if it’s invasive then it’s not without risk and there’s no way I’d be letting anyone other than a doctor, nurse or dentist carry it out. It’s time to stop just anyone doing these procedures which could be doing more harm than good.