Plastic but not fantastic

Figures from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (ISAPS) show that in 2011, 15 million people across the globe turned to plastic surgery to enhance their looks. It wasn’t that long ago, maybe a couple of decades, that for most people your looks were something you had to live with. Modifying your appearance was reserved for the Hollywood types where their career was a function of their appearance. It seems now though, that everybody is on the “body enhancement” bandwagon but a new study has cast doubt on the effect of plastic surgery.

While economies teeter on the edge of crisis for the last five years spending on plastic surgery has continued to increase. Australians are at the forefront of this according to research from IbisWorld which has found that they are spending almost 40 per cent more per capita that people in America and Europe. In 2012 Australians will spent around $850 million on cosmetic surgery with the most popular procedures being blepharoplasty (upper and/or lower eyelid surgery), rhinoplasty (nose surgery), breast augmentation, breast lifts, and liposuction. Any individual has the right to decide to undertake plastic surgery but the question is whether it is worth it.

In a new study researchers asked independent people to rate photographs of people who underwent facial plastic surgery between 2006 and 2010. People in the photographs were aged between 42 and 73 years and the raters were shown photographs of before and after the plastic surgery, although an individual “rater” did not necessarily see the same person in a “before and after” sceario. The people doing the rating were asked to rate the people in the photos for their chronological age and attractiveness.

The results showed that people were estimated to be about 2.1 years younger than their actual chronological age before surgery and then 5.2 years younger than their chronological age after surgery. So plastic surgery did show up as shaving around three years off a person’s appearance. However, the interesting thing was that there was no statistically significant difference in how attractive people were rated following their plastic surgery.

So while people were perceived as a bit younger their appeal was not enhanced. Could it be a that a perpetual look of wide-eyed, deep-inhalation disinterest is not attractive? It is a radical thought but maybe acceptance of your self might be an attractive quality after all.