Rose Kerr

In 2021, Sarah and her team published a paper in PLOS One titled Under the Knife, Unfavourable Perceptions of Women Who Seek Plastic Surgery.

The photos were paired with descriptions of activities that the women were doing.

They presented these images and descriptions to nearly 1,000 adults, asking them to rate the women based on various traits.

Wow.

But then...

Unless you're not attractive because then it's fair enough.

What do you think this kind of tells us about society's attitudes towards cosmetic procedures broadly?

Sarah has continued her research in this area through interviewing women about their experiences of cosmetic surgery stigma.

Some of these were worked on with Professor Gemma Sharp and we'll link to them and others we've mentioned on our website.

But through these studies, Sarah has found that women who have had work done to their appearance were very aware of the stigma they may face.

Sana, I'm keen to get your thoughts on something we've not mentioned yet, which is how the popularity and normalisation of cosmetic procedures impacts our view of aging.

Like, so many treatments are focused on lifting the face or reducing wrinkles.

Like, I want to know, do all these things impact how we view our own faces when they do start looking older?

What do you reckon?

How does all this content make you feel?

Exactly.

And it's not that far of a step to then picture someone going, I'll get the cosmetic procedure as well.

I wanted to put this question to Professor Gemma Sharp.

So I asked her if she thinks the popularity of cosmetic procedures has changed the way we think about ageing at a broader scale, at more of a societal level.

Here's Dr Sarah Burnell again.