One of the hottest debates around plastic surgery today is whether teens with nits should be able to get done. The biggest problem with this debate is that the legislation has yet to step in and say no to the surgeons who perform these surgeries. Many people insist that the decision to undergo plastic surgery should only be made by adults. Their number one reason is due to the fact that a teenager’s body is still growing.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons has established guidelines that its board-certified physicians must follow on how to determine whether a minor should be allowed to undergo surgery. The decision of the doctor must be based on the fact that the adolescent’s body must be prepared for such an alteration and his emotional mentality must be prepared.
The only real legislation related to teenage plastic surgery is that of the FSA, which has stated that no person under the age of 18 will be allowed a breast augmentation. But that’s the limit to government participation. There are no laws that say you cannot work on a teenager’s ears, nose, or chin.
The truth is, although the number of teens having plastic surgery has decreased in recent years, too many procedures are still being performed. One of the representatives of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons was even quoted as saying that it more likely has to do with too many doctors saying that surgery can be done, but it really shouldn’t. It all comes down to the big dollar and how much money the doctor can safely raise over a given period of time.
A teenager’s body is still developing even after the age of 18, and for any teenager to decide that something is not right, even if they have not finished growing, it may be the wrong way to do things. Too many teens have opted for plastic surgery, and in most cases, like anything else associated with teenage life, it boils down to socialized patterns. A teenager who undergoes plastic surgery to look like a movie star only does it to fit in a crowd that he wouldn’t have fit in to begin with. This can also lead to more emotional scarring as the adolescent grows older and wonders if the operation was a good option.
Teens are obsessed with how they look and how others perceive them. No matter how much you change, you will never be perfect in your own mind. So what it really comes down to is that teens may simply not be emotionally capable of properly deciding whether or not a procedure should be performed. Many parents are not helping either. The parents, for some unknown reason, will give the necessary consent as well as the cash for their minor child to undergo a procedure.