Millions of women every day are bombarded with the media’s idea of the “perfect” body. These unrealistic images are portrayed in women’s magazines all over the country. The message being sent to women is that they are not pretty or skinny enough.
Annually, magazine companies spend billions of dollars on diet and exercise advertisements to put in their magazines. Magazines sell body dissatisfaction to their readers through unrealistic images of women, as well as dieting and exercise information.
Thirty years ago, Marilyn Monroe, a size 14, had the “ideal” body shape and size, but today’s standard is much smaller. As the beauty ideal continues to get smaller in our society, body image within Australian women continues to plummet. Magazines portray and compare happiness with being thin; therefore some feel if they are not thin, then they are not happy. As with women of all ages, many women in their early 20s are believed to hold unrealistic ideals of body shape and size, ideals that can be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.
I see hundreds of women a year that are all self-conscious about their body to some degree. My focus as a plastic surgeon is to provide my patients with the best advice, surgery and care possible and to deliver results that are accentuate their natural beauty.