Happy Birthday! Here’s A New Nose!
Gift giving can oftentimes be stressful, especially after adolescence when handmade things are no longer considered cute but are looked upon as cheap. With plastic surgery on the rise–11.5 million Americans went under the knife in 2006–a new trend is starting in the arena of gift giving.
These days Americans are tossing out previous gift ideas like nice dinners, spa treatments and those nicely scented house candles, and replacing them with plastic surgery.
A recent article in USA today referenced a husband from New Jersey who surprised his wife with an early holiday gift of the plastic surgery of her choice. She opted for liposuction.
Although the gift of an enhanced body part isn’t a new notion to me, it’s still shocking from time to time. In high school, Mom and Dad threw me a party and gave me a few standard gifts on graduation day. Though most of my friends, barely 18 at the time, received breast implants and nose jobs from their parents.
I remember being confused and somewhat saddened by these supposed “gifts.” Besides the initial reaction of, “really…you’re Dad got you a new chest?” came a wave of sympathy for my friends. The people closest to us are supposed to love us the way we are and gifts have always been something we gave to make the important people in our lives realize our care for them and ultimately, pay them a compliment. However, is buying someone plastic surgery really a compliment?
As David Sarwer, an associate professor of psychology at the Center for Human Appearance at the University of Pennsylvania states in the USA article, “It’s not perfume or a piece of jewelry. Giving plastic surgery as a gift trivializes a serious medical procedure.”
Long Island plastic surgeon, Zachary Gerut, agrees, stating that when giving plastic surgery as a gift, the giver must be very careful not to offend the receiver, especially younger recipients.
Plastic surgery clinics nationwide are now starting to offer gift giving specials and claim that the holidays and graduation seasons have become the busiest for breast augmentations, rhinoplasty, liposuction and Botox.
I can picture the cartoon now in Time magazine, Santa Clause making his list, cocoa steaming at his side, thinking to himself, hmm….I think I’ll get Sally some lipo, Danny calf implants, and Mrs. Clause some of those double DD’s that are such a hit these days.
I’m not against plastic surgery–I think everyone has the right to do what they choose with their bodies; however, having plastic surgery imposed upon you is a hard one to digest. I think I’ll be sticking to gift certificates to Nordstrom and magazine subscriptions for now…
Technorati Tags: plastic surgery, liposuction, Long Island plastic surgeon
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