Breast Implants for Teens:
A Poor Choice for Small Breasts and Smaller Self-Image

As breast size and shape are shaping the body-image and self-esteem of millions of adult women in our western culture, the message about breast size has finally permeated the consciousnesses of their adolescent daughters.

Today, breast implants are the most popular cosmetic procedure for teenagers.

What is it about breasts that we are willing to get them at any price?

'Any price' means: health, money, shame, life and even death.

My research shows that there is a general feeling of shame and anxiety in women, a need for perfection, about the appearance of their natural and healthy body.
That unnecessary shame and anxiety about appearance is now pervading the attitudes of our next generation of young girls, modeling after their moms.

The combination of the following four elements has created the ‘perfect storm’ for today's teenagers' perceptions and actions:

1. Mothers' poor body-image and their need to make life easier for their daughters.

Plus:

2. The thinner the body the more attractiveness attached to it. Since breasts made of fat, those thin bodies would have no breast fat left, unless they fix that problem.

Plus:

3. Fashion in media and peer pressure to look "sexy" or "hot" does mean having large breasts and showing cleavage.

Plus:

4. The ability to get or buy a cosmetic procedure. Not only we can do it; breast augmentation procedures are made to look so easy to get.

Today's teens do not view their body as a singular, unique and precious asset. They view their body as temporary property, such as ‘fixer-upper’ piece of real-estate... and they are out to upgrade their property with cosmetic surgery, tattoos and piercings. In the popularity quests of the young, the more one manipulates their body size and shape the more they are considered as "cool" within their peer group.

Breast implants for teenagers are also a tool for hiding the true self, the inadequate self and showing the facade as the 'new you'. Instead of effecting the young character from outside in, the facade barely disguises the other symptoms associated with poor body-image; low self esteem, body-dissatisfaction, appearance-obsession and in extreme cases addiction to cosmetic procedures.

Recently I researched our culture’s preoccupation with breasts' size and shape. One of the results of my research was coining the phrase: Booby-Trapped. I also wrote the book with the same title.

And on a personal note:

One of my six nieces told me about a classmate, 14 years old, who is saving "all" the money she makes from babysitting (!) for the purpose of having a "boob job" at age 16.

I cringed at that thought and asked my niece to find out if the classmate's parents know and/or what do they have to say about it. I got the answer the next day: her parents will match the savings, and by her Sweet 16th birthday, they will help her find a surgeon.

What were they thinking?

Are they that booby-trapped?

 

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