Healthy Living and Plastic Surgery?

My local paper ran a “Healthy Living” section one recent Sunday.  I suspect it’s just another way to get advertising money.  One of the ads, for a “plastic surgery center,” which I suspect is just one physician trying to make himself sound like an institution, caught my eye.  It listed the top 8 reasons women (of course) seek plastic surgery.  In all fairness, I recently read that men are seeking plastic surgery with alarming frequency as well.  But the top 8 include, as you might expect, getting rid of wrinkles and “unwanted hair.”  Also in the list are increasing boobage and lip size.  Then there are the removals, of fat, bags and “extra skin.” 

You’re reading a section of the paper about healthy living, and you see ads for surgery right next to articles about yoga, sunscreen and household mold.  What’s wrong with this picture?

How about acceptance of who we are instead of focusing on our inadequacies?  If we’re not happy with who we are how about working on changing who we are inside, not outside? 

Mental note:  questions to ask self before signing up for plastic surgery:

1.  Is this going to make me a better person?

2.  Is this going to make me happy?

3.  If I gave the money I’m going to spend on this to someone in need, would that make me happier?

4.  If I spent this money on myself  in some other way (e.g., joining a gym, taking a class, taking a trip, hiring a coach!) would that make me happier?

5.  What do I really need to be happier?

On the very same day I read “Healthy Living,” I came across Tina Fey’s “Twelve Tenets of Looking Amazing Forever,” in her awesomely funny memoir, Bossypants.  Number twelve is touted as the most important one to remember:

If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important Rule of Beauty.  “Who cares?”

I rest my case.

For fun:  Vogue, Madonna