As the summer days begin to wane and autumn rears its head, many of us associate this with the beginning of colder days and longer nights, while others see this seasonal crossover as a chance to shed old habits, develop our characters and, pardon the pun, turn over a new leaf.
One such development within the aesthetics landscape that shows no sign of ceasing is the ongoing rise of social media. Over the last few years, we have seen a transformation from efforts to delay the effects of ageing to younger women seeking to achieve the ‘perfect’ body through various enhancement procedures. Studies have shown that dissatisfaction with one's body begins in childhood. Growing up, most children have access to the internet within their home, with statistics showing that this figure lies at around 96% in adolescent girls (Tiggemann and Slater, 2013). Images, which are easily accessible at the click of a button, presented to young girls and women show so-called ‘perfect’ bodies, which, in reality, are airbrushed and edited, yet are presented as natural. These beliefs merely manifest further as children grow older and enter adulthood, with approximately only 12% of women claiming to be happy with their bodies (Cameron et al, 2018). Young women may seek out aesthetic practitioners in an effort to achieve this ‘ideal’ body through aesthetic procedures, which then raises the question of how to carry out ethical aesthetic practice.
Way back in March of this year, JAN began its new Ethics in Aesthetics campaign after many of our readers voiced their concerns over the ethical issues which aesthetic practitioners experience in their day-to-day interactions with patients, as well as the excessive treatments and, at points, unnatural results some patients have. In efforts to achieve perfection, patients around the UK are conforming to increasingly distorted perceptions of beauty, largely due to social media and an increasing celebrity culture, which one article in our September issue, titled Ethics in aesthetics: social media, explores in more detail, with referral to the ‘Kardashian effect’ and how it affects the younger population.
Not only are these messages harmful to young girls and women growing up told that they do not meet such narrow standards of beauty, but girls of other ethnicities are mainly exposed to caucasian role models with western facial features. With this continuing rise in social media, the aesthetic practitioner's role has transformed. Now, it is not only the practitioner's job to carry out the procedure, but it is now also their ethical duty to use reasonable judgement with patients to ensure they are there for the right reasons. For instance, if a woman from the east is seeking out lip enhancements or non-surgical rhinoplasty from an aesthetic practitioner, does she want to enhance her own beauty or attempt to rid herself of ‘non-western’ features due to these narrow beauty standards?
As always, we are continually interested in hearing your own experiences and case studies. If you are interested in writing an article, please contact the editor. We hope you enjoy this issue.