ON THE COVER Trout pouts and selfies
what are our girls doing to their faces?
Why are our girls obsessed with their faces?
With beauty ‘tweakments’ on the increase even among teenagers, louise Court talks to experts about the pitfalls of this unregulated industry – and asks what is making young women so obsessed with changing their looks
Remember when cosmetic surgery was the hush-hush secret of older, wealthy women who had the time and money to try recapturing their youth? Hollywood stars and trophy wives went to discreet clinics where doctors lifted breasts and faces, sucked out middle-aged spread, and ironed out wrinkles.
Not any more. there is a new kid on the block. our daughters. Even in their late teens, many young women are lusting after bigger breasts, plumped-up lips and liposuctioned waists. Inspired by celebrities such as the Kardashians and the stars of Love Island, combined with the pressures of looking ‘perfect’ on Instagram, this trend is creating a new norm. so much so, you can now
change your face at parties where lips are turned into pillow-sized pouts in-between sipping glasses of Prosecco. Worryingly, many young people are going for the cheapest options – unqualified, cut-price practitioners who promote themselves on social media – without realising there are serious risks attached. as horror stories and gruesome photos of botched injections make the headlines, there’s a demand for legislation so that only fully qualified medics are permitted to perform these procedures. alice Hart-Davis, a beauty expert, mum and author of The Tweakments Guide, is very concerned. ‘there is a thing called selfie dysmorphia, where doctors state young people turn up and say “I don’t look like this any more”, based on filtered pictures on their
phone. Doctors have to say, “you never looked like that!”.
‘Most problems come from lip fillers; they can go lumpy, or the lips may form lumps around the filler at some point in the future. If filler is injected into a blood vessel and blocks it, the tissue around it will swell alarmingly and, if it is not treated very soon, the tissue can die off, as it is starved of oxygen. the difficulty is that to the untrained eye, this can look like bad bruising and swelling. Experienced practitioners will know how to manage this complication. less experienced practitioners won’t know how to handle it and may send the patient to a&E, where nurses aren’t trained in aesthetic complications, so don’t know what to do about it either. that’s why it is so vital to choose an experienced, medically qualified professional to do injectable tweakments,’ says alice.
‘the law needs to be changed so that only properly qualified practitioners can give these treatments.’
Dr Tijion Esho, an award-winning cosmetic medic with a long list of celebrity clients, counsels young people and their parents, explaining the risks, often persuading them to wait until they are older. He is a keen advocate of more regulation. sometimes parents leave his surgery with a relieved thumbs up, other times his battle is as much with the parents. ‘It is important to be clear about the difference between enhancements and reconstructive treatment, and a want compared to a need. Many times we have parents who come in with their daughters, anxious to iron out all the “imperfections” to make her happy and confident. the key advice is to address the reason why someone wants surgery and make sure they go to someone who is medically regulated, with whom you can have an informed discussion.’
Natasha Devon, a body confidence and mental health campaigner working with teenagers in schools and colleges throughout the UK, is concerned by >>
Government advice
New legislation will take effect in May 2020 to strengthen the quality assurance and safety of dermal fillers. Health Minister Jackie Doyle-Price said: ‘These are serious treatments – we need people to do their homework on the company or individual carrying out the procedure. If a deal looks too good to be true, don’t be afraid to walk away.’
‘We have parents who come in with their daughters, anxious to iron out all the “imperfections” to make her happy and confident’
the pressures on young people. ‘often, young people I see follow me on Instagram – in real life they look radically different from one another but online it’s difficult to tell them apart. Not only are filters and apps homogenising everyone, but we can never live up to how we’re most used to seeing ourselves.
‘In my experience, the “switch” happens in year 9, when they’re about 13 years old. that’s when girls start telling me they couldn’t imagine coming to school without make-up, and boys start fretting about not appearing muscular enough. this is also when they start talking about surgery and asking me whether I think it’s “right or wrong”.
‘ultimately, I ask them to think about whether they are changing their appearance from a place of experimentation and joy, or a place of apology and expectation. While they’re very aware that social media posts have often been altered, that doesn’t stop them aspiring to the images they present. young people need to be exposed to diversity
– lots of shapes, sizes, ages, races, colours and abilities – to understand how incredibly broad the spectrum of beauty is.
‘We created the Channel 4 show Naked Beach as a family show for that very reason, to expose young people to all the things usually airbrushed out – scars, stretch marks, rolls, vitiligo, cellulite – they’re all normal and require representation.’
‘Young people need to be exposed to diversity to understand how incredibly broad the spectrum of beauty is’