"Studies show that in 2012 there were more than 236,000 cosmetic surgeries performed on patients between ages 13 to 19 including more than 75,000 surgeries on nose jobs, breast augmentation, liposuction, and tummy tuck" (Zuckerman, 2012). Our generation filled with social media and is constantly bombarded with images and advertisements of beautiful girls and models showing off their flawless bodies, or unblemished skin; making it hard for normal girls like me to feel beautiful on the inside when everyone focuses on the exterior of a woman. Young women in our society struggle with body image because we are surrounded and reminded daily of a certain "standard of beauty," and plastic surgeons are making big bucks because we believe it. In today's society teens are constantly feeling pressured to get cosmetic surgery, due to media's effects, the influences of celebrity/social lights, and most of them not knowing the risk such procedures can have on their developing bodies.
Media has almost brainwashed us into believing that there should be a "standard of beauty." A good example would be watching a Victoria Secret commercial those beautiful women posing in lingerie with their size two waist, causing us to think we have to be that size to look good in their bra and underwear. Victoria Secret isn't the only that does this makeup advertisement seem to force us to buy their products practically making us feel bad enough to buy it. Even younger girls between the ages of 5 to 7 want to look like Barbie, CNN.com states, "One study reported on girls age 5 to 7 who, when exposed to images of thin dolls like Barbie, said they wanted to look thinner compared with those who saw dolls with a healthier body shape. (Swinson 2011)" This distorted perception of beauty on our society where women want to look like a Barbie doll that isn't even to scale to an average body, average women in America is 5'4'and 140 lbs.