Is Over The Top Plastic Surgery Part Of Celebrity Culture Or A Symptom Of Mental Illness?

Anybody who pays attention to celebrity news knows that plastic surgery enjoys widespread popularity among this elite group. But because so many celebrities use plastic surgery to enhance their looks, it can be easy to fail to notice a more insidious trend that is taking place. Although they are in the minority, there are a number of celebrities that have chosen to pursue plastic surgery to the point of looking disturbing and unrecognizable. The classic example of this obsession with plastic surgery would probably be Michael Jackson or Joan Rivers, but it can be seen in many others including most recently Bruce Jenner. With reports coming out that Bruce Jenner is now planning a laryngeal shave, a procedure usually done for members of the transgender community in which forceps are used to separate neck muscles so a surgeon can use a scalpel to cut into the Adam's apple, because he "just never liked my trachea", we must start to question if these individuals are merely vain or possibly mentally ill.

Would A Mentally Healthy Person Make These Choices?

Anybody who has seen before and after pictures of individuals like Michael Jackson or Bruce Jenner knows that these plastic surgeries are not having an aesthetically beneficial impact, so there must be some other motivating factor behind the decision to repeatedly go under the knife. Recently, Medical News Today published an article that suggested that an obsessive desire for cosmetic surgery could be linked to body dysmorphic disorder. They claim that this disorder "is characterized by a significant dissatisfaction with one's appearance, particularly with perceived flaws." This explanation for the behavior of celebrities who undergo extensive plastic surgery seems logical, but still leaves us with the question of the morality of allowing these individuals to go forward with their surgeries. Should someone who is mentally ill and driven to have extensive unnecessary surgery be allowed to continue? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question.