Rose Kerr

Okay, back to Gemma's work with people seeking out cosmetic procedures.

She says overall she'd like to see more involvement of psychologists in the cosmetic industry.

Currently in Australia, registered health professionals that perform non-surgical cosmetic procedures are required to assess their patients' mental health.

Body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD, is a mental health condition where someone has a fixation on an aspect of their appearance, often believing that it's defective.

It has a significant effect on someone's day-to-day life and is often associated with anxiety, depression and even suicidal behaviour.

The reason BDD is named specifically in the guidelines for these patient assessments is because it's the most studied psychiatric illness in cosmetic settings.

And research suggests that BDD has a higher prevalence in people seeking cosmetic procedures compared to the general population.

This begs the question, does surgery help people with BDD?

Gemma says we need more research to fully understand the outcomes.

But it's unclear whether someone's concerns about their appearance will be redirected to another part of the body.

Have you noticed this?

Oh, yeah.

And a massive one in my world was 11 years ago in 2015, after years of speculation, Kylie Jenner finally admitted to getting lip filler like it wasn't just really great makeup.

And despite this increased awareness and more normalization of cosmetic procedures, there is kind of still a stigma.

A recent example for me was when the final season of Stranger Things came out.

People were kind of making fun of Millie Bobby Brown's lips because it looked like she had had filler done.

Yeah, it's like an elephant in the room, right?

You can tell someone's face looks different and then seemingly people can react in quite a negative way.

And seeing these conversations play out online got me interested in how we view other people who've had cosmetic procedures.

So I spoke to a researcher who's done work looking at just that.