Navigating identity, beauty standards, and choice in the age of cosmetic enhancement

 

The modern world has made many things possible: making money on your phone, artificial intelligence has become a counsellor and planes can take people to other countries. Amongst revolutions in medicine and technology, the world of plastic and cosmetic surgery has seen advancement, with a wave of procedures being performed on those who can afford it.

 

To see a celebrity untouched by knife or needle is a rarity, with many being regular visitors to clinics to tweak the size of lips and fight time by removing wrinkles. People have been inspired by their favourite music artist and actors, taking pictures of unreachable beauty standards to plastic surgeons and requesting to be moulded into images they weren’t made to be.

 

The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) released data on plastic surgery conducted annually in 2024 in a Global Survey on Aesthetic/Cosmetic procedures. The results showcased 17.4 million surgical procedures performed by plastic surgeons and 20.5 non-surgical procedures. The survey also highlighted eyelid surgery as the most common surgical procedure that year, replacing the usual winner – liposuction. Non – surgical procedures such as botox and fillers also touched the faces of more people, with 10,000 performed by British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) members in 2024 in the UK alone.

 

Cosmetic surgery has become more accessible in affordability, with many a patient taking trips to countries such as Turkey, Lithuania and beyond in the search for a ‘fix’ to an aesthetic insecurity. There has been a noted shift in attitude in the discourse surrounding cosmetic procedures in the past decade as a whole due to movement in society towards self-love and wellness. It is not unusual to enter your local Tesco and see a young woman brandished with Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) hips, often at times made obvious by the abnormal size.

 

The rise of weight-loss injections such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have also played a role as the people taking these medications have turned to get surgery on their faces. If the ability to rebrand oneself and change the way you look has become so easy, why not do it? If the common man or common woman has gone ahead to rid a pointy nose or shed fat without toiling in the gym, why should you not do it?

 

There are some Christians that believe that seeking medical attention is equivalent to professing a lack of faith in God. God is Jehovah Rapha, which is Hebrew name for God meaning the ‘’The Lord Who Heals,’’ first revealed in Exodus 15:26 when God healed the bitter waters of Marah, demonstrating His power to restore and mend physical, emotional, and spiritual brokenness. This belief, however, would oppose the occupation of one the writers of the Gospel, Luke, who was a physician. The physician is one of God’s gifts to us, the knowledge and intelligence of the doctor allowing healing and recovery to take place.

 

It can then be argued that plastic surgeons are also doctors, the occupation providing healing and recovery to the mental strife that a person is oppressed with by way of their insecurities. Are plastic surgeons God’s answer to bodily insecurities?

 

However, choosing to get plastic surgery because you are not happy with your body image opposes many answers we find in scripture. In Genesis 1:27, we are told that we were made in the image of God and in that same chapter, also told that God looked at His creation, and saw that it was ‘good’:

‘So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.’

Therefore, to undergo a procedure out of the place of unhappiness and insecurity is to tell the Creator that He was wrong in branding you, His creation, as good. If the blade of grass was called good alongside the brown colour of the soil it comes out of, then the size of your nose is good. The wrinkle that comes with age and speaks to your wisdom is good. Are you more wise than the Creator of the foundations of this earth and the stars that clutter the sky? Find solace in Job 42:3:

‘You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.’

You may not understand why your eyes look the way they do when compared to the eyes set by the beauty standard of the world, but there are ‘things too wonderful’ for you to understand.

 

Also understand that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, as spoken in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. The spirit dwells in you, regardless of the size and shape of your body, and is sacred. View your body in the lens of the God who has moulded and loves you and change your perspective.

 

The motives of the heart must be a point of topic in understanding why plastic or cosmetic surgery is an option. Is it being done for the sake of merging into the many faces and bodies sported by the community that has undergone the knife. If vanity is what motivates someone to undergo procedures, the person could have become their own idol. Worship belongs to the Lord and Him alone and anything that would take away from His glory is a sin.

 

If someone has been reading this article and has felt as if they have wanted to undergo body augmentation of any type, take a moment to pray and examine your motives. Ask the Lord to see yourself as the Lord sees you and understand why you have been created the way you are. You are made and valued by the Lord, His prize possession, so fight the whispers of the mind that say otherwise.