Sociology

In the past two decades plastic surgery has become one of the largest and fastest growing medical specialties in the world. Initially, plastic surgeons used to practice reconstructive surgery only but with the turn of events cosmetic surgery engulfed it all. (Envy, 1997, p.2). The recent proliferation of reality based programmes highlighting cosmetic surgery has raised concerns that such programming promotes unrealistic expectations of plastic surgery and increases the desire of viewers to undergo such procedures. Its at no doubt that a hundreds of women are undergoing plastic surgery in search for either a smoother skin or a super  cinched waistline. In the current world where extra, extra small and even 00 sizes and shapes are hailed, it explains why all these women, in their quest to attain these glamorous looks, are turning to plastic surgery to meet the thin, sleek and sculpted standard of beauty the media has imposed on us (Loftus, p.76).
Citing from a wide array of resources - individual accounts, personal medical records, magazines, books and journals, beauty guides and even articles in newspapers, it has come to dawn on us that our culture has come to highlight cosmetic surgery as a panacea for the body mind and spirit and a requirement for individual persons and the society as a whole. Medical practitioners and plastic surgeons have linked the need for normal standards of beauty and style to social class ratings and economic success in the society. They have also related the most undesirable physical characteristics in terms of looks and appearance to psychological condition of the mind such as the inferiority complex to which cosmetic surgery has managed to offer a remedy to. Cosmetic surgery is perceived as a practical and structural solution for the never ending problems raging from low self-esteem to lost careers. (Envy, 1997, p. 56)


The theoretical analysis of plastic surgery
In exploring the similarity experienced in the development of cosmetic surgery and human physicality, researchers has managed to highlight a number of philosophical and psychological queries that underpins the practical ideas given by surgeons or doctors to potential individuals considering carrying out this forms of surgery.
In analyzing this incorporation some theories were put across by theorists like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Karl Menninger, Paul Schilder and other contemporary feminists, its considered that there is a high and unstable form of cultural notions of health, happiness, and beauty. Revelations of ideas relating to race and gender have structured early understandings of aesthetic surgery, discussing both the abnormality of the Jewish nose and the historical requirement that healthy and virtuous females look normal thereby enabling them to achieve invisibility. (Gilman, 1998, p 16).
Upon reflecting on matters like the widespread prejudices caused by either ones physical appearance or looks, the functionalist theory highlights and describes how cosmetic surgery can save us from the persecutions, persecutions, physical attacks, and even killings that continue to occur due to bodily difference. It educates us in thinking about the cultural assumptions which continue to suppress the increasing adoption and acceptability of this helpful form of psychotherapy.
              Let nothing or no one impair your success thats what the theory of functionalism advocates for. If one feels that by changing hisher physical appearance will bring make things good for him then let him do so.


Critical analysis
A significant percentage of people from around the world seem to concur with this theory. Adoption of change is starting to dawn on people. A survey carried out in the United States by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 2005 indicated that in the year 2004, the total number of people who undertook cosmetic surgery procedures nearly clocked 12 million. This represented 17 rise in all forms of surgeries and 51 increase in cosmetic surgery compared to the previous year. This kind of drastic change meant that people are getting more enlightened about this form of surgery. However, research showed that this was mostly influenced by makeover programs depicting cosmetic procedures.
          The criticism about this programmes are true, they present invasive cosmetic procedures as of relatively low risk. They only highlights the positive impacts of these procedures leaving the negativities for one to find out incase it fails.
 They generally suggest that these are a common and acceptable ways of lifting ones physical appearance leading to satisfaction. Lets assume that the audience blindly buy these ideas and adopt these dangerous views, the repercussions are unknown. They can either be positive or negative.
          Again, these assertions are based on the assumptions that there has never been strong proven empirical evidence. This also does not imply that these arguments are not consistent with theoretical principles. This argument was not based on one theory only. The theories of cultivation, social comparison, and social cognitive have all been used to evaluate on the effects of the media content on body image generally. The results implied that with all the damage the media has caused, we are still to blame for our actions. The decisions we make are not supposed to be influenced by all the hype these form of practices get from the media.