When Kylie Jenner famously admitted that her signature pout was the result of lip fillers, interest and acceptance of the cosmetic procedure increased significantly. That’s the power of social media.
But why is social media so persuasive, and what is driving young women’s attitudes towards cosmetic surgery?
In a new study from the University of South Australia, researchers have explored just that, finding that young women who regularly engage with social media are overly self-judgmental and more likely to consider cosmetic surgery.
The study of 238 young Australian women (aged 18-29) also found that 16% of women had had cosmetic surgery and more than half (54%) would consider it in the future. Only 31% said they would not have cosmetic surgery.
Cosmetic surgery has become an increasingly popular way to change a person’s appearance. From 2010 to 2018, the number of cosmetic procedures and surgeries almost doubled from 117,000 to more than 225,000. Today, almost seven million Australians (38% of the adult population) are considering cosmetic surgery in the next 10 years.
UniSA researcher and PhD candidate Lauren Conboy says the study highlights the profound and worrying impact of social networking sites on young women’s body perceptions and attitudes towards cosmetic surgery.
“The prevalence of body dissatisfaction among young women has long been a pervasive problem, with social media promoting unattainable standards of beauty,” says Conboy.
“In Australia, young adults are among the highest users of social networking sites, so their exposure to unrealistic body ideals is high. Not surprisingly, the increase in social media use has coincided with an increase in the number of young women undergoing cosmetic surgery.
“The prevalence of body dissatisfaction among young women has long been a pervasive problem, with social media promoting unattainable standards of beauty,” says Conboy.
“In Australia, young adults are among the highest users of social networking sites, so their exposure to unrealistic body ideals is high. Not surprisingly, the increase in social media use has been accompanied by an increase in the number of young women undergoing cosmetic surgery.
“In this study, we investigated how self-compassion might modify this relationship, so that we can understand what we can do to influence positive psychosocial well-being.
“Self-compassion is about accepting flaws with neutrality. When we have positive self-compassion, we are kinder and more understanding of ourselves, but when we have negative self-compassion, we tend to overestimate and criticise our flaws.
“Our study found that cosmetic procedures are well accepted among young women, and that greater use of social media correlated with greater acceptance of cosmetic surgery.
“Specifically, we found that young women who over-identified with personal attributes they thought were unattractive were more likely to feel bad about themselves and, despite recognising this, couldn’t seem to break free of these negative thoughts. Over-identification was the most important predictor of positive attitudes towards cosmetic surgery”.
Co-researcher Dr John Mingoia from UniSA says more needs to be done to help young women avoid striving for unrealistic and potentially harmful body images as portrayed on social media.
Social networking sites are clearly a pervasive mode of comparison and body dissatisfaction for young women, but because of their extreme popularity, they provide an opportune platform to disseminate messages that can counteract potentially harmful appearance-related content,” says Dr Mingoia.
“Research shows that even after cosmetic surgery, less than 40% of women are satisfied with their bodies post-surgery.
“Clinicians need to assess and confirm the psychosocial safety of young women who may be influenced by media representations of beauty before they go under the knife.
“If young women continue to access cosmetic surgery without addressing underlying self-compassion concerns, they may never feel satisfied with their own bodies.”
