Hamburger and Liposuction
Take America, for example - the only country in the world that keeps strict statistics on this subject and where the number of plastic surgeries per year is about to approach the number of hamburgers eaten in the same year. True, the operations there are somewhat more expensive: in 2000, Americans paid $5 billion for their improvement! The following year about the same, and in 2002 a little more.
50% of all operations performed in America are liposuction, fat removal. The number of people who annually rid themselves of extra kilograms is also impressive: 600-800 thousand people. (For comparison, only 170 thousand do circular facelifts - which, however, is also a lot.) The second most in-demand operation in the US is breast augmentation through implantation of implants. The third is replacing old implants with new, improved ones. In fourth place are various peels, followed by blepharoplasty (removal of excess skin on the eyelids), rhinoplasty (changing the shape of the nose), and so on... More precisely, further everywhere where anything can be corrected, improved, or added.
Finding an explanation for this is simple. First, in America it is fashionable to be young. Second, in America you need to be young. Otherwise you will fall out of the loop, and you won't see career growth any more than you can see your own knees because of your big belly. And third, in America they really love hamburgers and french fries. Therefore, food service producers here are in constant interaction with the society of plastic surgeons. Well, isn't that a useful symbiosis?!
My relative from America, having had yet another plastic surgery, believes that a plastic surgeon for a woman is like a cosmetologist. If you want to look good, sign up for a peel, liposuction, or something else, be a little patient (after all, beauty demands sacrifices!), and then you won't even need a cosmetologist: you will look fine without makeup. In America it is not customary to wear bright makeup, so hiding your flaws with cosmetics is quite difficult here, and that is another reason for plastic surgery.
But besides this, there is also a psychological factor influencing the choice “to cut or not to cut?” American women are very freedom-loving. They say to themselves: “I am a free woman in a free country. And now, if I want, I can freely eat this sweet donut teeming with cholesterol and fats. And then, if I want, I will go and freely have liposuction.” By the way, the first liposuction was performed in Paris in 1976, but it reached its peak in California. Hollywood dictates its own standards, different from those nature gave women. And women listen more to Hollywood than to nature. Especially American women.
In addition to liposuction, the US also uses gastroplasty - an operation in which another, smaller stomach is created inside the patient's stomach. When the person wakes up from anesthesia and starts eating, his new small stomach, as it fills, will send signals to the brain: “Stop! You're full!” It is expected that this will save the patient from gluttony, and the question “to cut or not to cut?” will not arise at all.
Breasts for Frau Müller
In Europe, things are somewhat different. They perform plastic surgeries there (as a percentage per capita) roughly two times less than in America, and they do not keep strict statistics, and indeed, they cannot agree with each other. In the sense that they introduced a single currency, but they cannot develop a unified concept regarding what is better - a thin waist or large breasts.
Take Germany, for example: there they hold the opinion that a woman must have breasts. And these breasts must be obvious. And so Germany alone buys as many breast implants as Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and Bulgaria combined. And there are more than enough extra-class surgeons whose specialty is breast surgery. The entire plastic world knows Dr. Werner Audreich, all plastic surgeons read his works, many travel to Germany specifically to learn from his experience. By the way, he explains German women's interest in breast augmentation by the fact that somewhere in the German subconscious there is firmly embedded the thought that a woman should embody fertility. And how can one embody fertility? Of course, with the ideal shape and large size of the mammary glands!
A Little Lifting for Mature Ladies
But the Frenchwoman, it seems, does not have a complex at all if her breasts do not symbolize anything like that. First of all, she will perfect her face and only then take care of her body. Everything below the collarbones is not so important to her. Partly because Frenchwomen are already quite slender, partly because the eternal Parisian fashion for black turtlenecks is still relevant, and partly because men look for (and sometimes actually find) not a standard in Frenchwomen but charm - so it has happened historically.
From all this, of course, it does not follow that in France they do not do liposuction at all or do not enlarge breasts. Of course, they do, and of course, they enlarge them. But only when it is really necessary, and not because the movies showed another busty beauty with a happily settled fate. Frenchwomen generally treat aesthetic medicine very pragmatically: up to a certain age they limit themselves to injections, diligently go to beauty salons, and carefully watch their calories. Of course, not all, of course, not everywhere, and of course, not always, but we are generalizing, and therefore we have the right to a margin of error. Perhaps one day you saw a lady on the beach in Cannes who clearly does neither one, nor the other, nor the third. I also saw one there. And more than one. But still, they are an error.
Artificial Passion
In terms of attention to breasts, Brazil is quite comparable to Germany, although here it's not about fertility, but about the embodiment of passion. And passion is breasts and hips, no matter how you look at it. And what else can you look at? Therefore, implants that fertile German women insert into their breasts, ardent Brazilian women also place in their buttocks, so that everything is as convex from behind as it is in front. And although special implants have already been invented for buttocks, on which, according to rumors, it is more comfortable to sit, Brazilian surgeons still gladly use the tried-and-true 'breast implants,' and Brazilian women gladly wear them in their bottoms, and Brazilian men gladly slap them. Moreover, many foreign women come to Rio de Janeiro specifically for a qualitatively new breast and an exciting bottom. That is why in Rio de Janeiro, the luminary of world aesthetic medicine, Ivo Pitanguy himself, holds consultations.
And on the other hand, what do you want? Brazil is one continuous beach. They go to the beach as often as Parisian women go to the office. And in the office you have to look the part. Here there is even a custom: on her 18th birthday, every girl receives as a gift... No, not a Jaguar and not a modest little ring with a diamond, but a tidy sum for the improvement of any part of her body. Therefore, correcting the shape of one's eyes or enlarging one's buttocks for Latin American women is the same as getting a facial peel.
The East is a delicate matter?
The East is a delicate matter, but it depends on how you look at it. However you look at Israeli women, there are few thin ones (meaning skinny, slender) - mostly all plump and chubby girls. But they don't suffer from this at all. In Israel there is an unspoken motto: we are full, which means we are cheerful and good-natured, and we like it that way!
Although, of course, not everyone likes it. And those who are dissatisfied with something in their appearance still turn to plastic surgeons. But the reasons for surgery are mostly trivial: removal of age spots, papillomas, and various unsightly growths on the skin. Why is there so little cutting here? The fact is that in Israel, the majority of the population is religious. It is understandable - living in holy places and not believing is simply impossible. Therefore, the question becomes relevant: do people have the right to correct the Creator?
Many women come to the conclusion that they do not have the right. Therefore, operations to enlarge breasts, buttocks, or other erogenous and non-erogenous areas are not particularly popular in Israel. Moreover, religious people (i.e., the majority of the population) wear long black clothes and even nylon tights in 40-degree heat, hiding both the merits and flaws of the female figure.
But it cannot be said that in the Promised Land they do not take care of their appearance. Photorejuvenation is very popular there (it removes age spots, fine wrinkles, and other consequences of constant sun exposure from the face), as well as various peels.
Lots of sun in warm water
Residents of Italy, Spain, and Argentina also suffer from the sun. After all, in all countries where there is a lot of sun, skin aging happens faster. And if in Israel women are saved by long skirts, dresses, and tights, then in other countries they seek salvation in plastic surgery. After all, the sun's rays threaten so-called photoaging, which causes age spots, wrinkles, and visible blood vessels.
Italian women very often ask the doctor to remove a pair of ribs and thereby reduce the size of their waist. Judging by these reviews, the image of a young Sophia Loren still excites the imagination of Italian men - and Italian women 'tailor' themselves to her. By the way, Italy is one of the few countries where plump lips are still actively ordered.
In Argentina, everything would probably be exactly the same if it weren't for the world-famous plastic surgeon José Juri, who in Buenos Aires receives all citizens dissatisfied with the shape of their nose. This doctor truly deserves praise, because he can not only create a nose that 'sits' perfectly on the face, but also predict how that nose will behave in the future. Such a fine spiritual connection between the author and his work has led to the fact that 50% of the operations performed in Buenos Aires are rhinoplasty, changing the shape of the nose.
We Know a Thing or Two
It's good to wander the world and see where, what, and how plastic surgeons cut. But we already have something to boast about. True, for the average compatriot, visiting a clinic of aesthetic surgery falls into the category of a secret and even intimate mission. Moreover, only very wealthy women can afford to correct their figure through plastic surgery in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Besides, to go to a plastic surgeon, you need not only a hefty wallet. And for now, not every, even quite well-to-do woman, will risk going under the knife and sacrificing her body to beauty. We would rather give up fast food, oriental sweets, and other overseas delicacies. Or suffer for the rest of our lives looking in the mirror.