Why Do We Want to Look Good?

To contact us Click HERE
By Kyle Bradson

It's the beginning of summer again. The weather's getting warmer. The sun's shining brighter. Our clothes are getting lighter. And many of us are coming to the startling conclusion that we need to lose a couple pounds. It happens every year: when the sun comes out, sales of diet books, gym memberships, and cosmetic surgeries like laser liposuction spike as people do everything they can to get in shape to hit the beach again.

Laser liposuction is so named because of a similarity to the well branded liposuction technique, but it doesn't actually use suction. Instead, it melts fat underneath the skin using a specialized laser. Unlike liposuction, it's not a remedy for the obese, but it is a fast and minimally invasive method for getting rid of the pesky fat pockets that don't tend to respond to diet or exercise.

For example, the fat pockets that collect under the arms, on the neck, or under the chin are very persistent. They're the last to go when people lose body fat, and sometimes people have to lose more body fat than they should in order to get rid of them. They're also in difficult places to target with exercise. You don't often see classes teaching "pilates for the chin."

Still, the concurrent evolution of cosmetic surgery and digital photography have served to change our idea of what a body should look like, driving an epidemic of body consciousness that makes having these pockets of fat frustrating. Even those who would normally consider themselves immune to body image manipulation can't help but be influenced by what is, essentially, a subtle shift of what we consider to be normal.

The last few years have seen remarkable improvements in computer imaging technologies, which have had broad applications to medicine. This technology has enabled cosmetic surgery to go through a metamorphosis. Much more elaborate cosmetic surgery is possible, and many procedures that have a demonstrable aesthetic effect can be done with a minimal amount of invasiveness, pain, and cost. One end of the spectrum maximizes what cosmetic surgery can do; the other makes minor cosmetic procedures much more attainable and much more common.

Computer imaging technology has also revolutionized digital photography, enabling higher quality images and proving robust photo editing solutions. In the days of film, a little airbrushing was all a photographer could do to reduce the appearance of flaws. Now powerful software allows pixel-by-pixel alteration, and we rarely see a picture of a person that hasn't been edited in some way. We are surrounded by photography, and specifically we are surrounded by photographs that have been doctored to make them as striking as possible.

These influences have caused the body ideal to evolve. As more people get surgery, those surgical enhancements become part of what we expect people to look like. As we are surrounded by photography that has been edited to improve the way people look, we absorb that look as our ideal. Over time our "normal" becomes skewed by these ideals, and we have less of a response to reality because we expect an enhanced version of it.

Interestingly enough, women might actually be less susceptible to body idealism than men are. After all, while women's bodies have been used to sell everything from soap to salad since the invention of the camera, there is also a loud and consistent reaction to those images that help to mitigate body image issues for women. But men are vain as well, and as we are increasingly surrounded by idealized images of the male body, we begin to feel inadequate. That inadequacy makes a trip to the cosmetic surgeon for some laser liposuction seem like a pretty good idea.




About the Author:

I enjoy writing about lots of health-related topics. For more resources and information, I recommend The Finer Touch.