How to Look Great and Get Sick Doing It

If you think that the Mayans and some Orientals were crazy when they flattened their kids heads to conform to beauty standards of their time, and the 18th Century Georgian women were about as fake as you can get, how about today's breast implants, liposuction, face lifts, tummy tucks, nose jobs, lip thickening, emaciation to look like fashion models, platform shoes, return to tight corsets, body piercing, Botox injections (a dangerous poison), and use of steroids to bulk up muscles.

So what! Humans have always found ways to alter their bodies, their clothing, and their accessories as a way to conform to the fashions of the day. Why worry about it? Ah, hold it there. Is it really okay or are we risking our health? Severe lacing of corsets damaged internal organs, deformed rib cages, atrophied back muscles, impaired breathing often leading to fainting, and caused wearers to have virtually no energy. Of course women in those days were supposed to be delicate. So what if they were miserable, weak, and misshaped. Today cosmetic surgical procedures, body piercing, or even pushing back nail cuticles can lead to serious infections, or beauty robbing scars.

In an article called "Health risks make some fashions "don'ts" written by Victoria Stagg Elliott for the American Medical News for their August 5, 2002 issue the author follows this provocative title with the statement "Physicians say style trends can cause infections, damage the musculoskeletal system and impact fertility." Here's a few of the dangers mentioned for some of today's body manipulations:

• Thong underwear can cause recurrent vaginal infection and even recurrent urinary tract infections. Bacteria start at the rectum and travel forward via the thong.
• Tight jeans have caused genital irritation, infection and low sperm counts in men.
• Big shoulder bags may be responsible for back and shoulder pain, and back packs used by school children are often creating havoc as well.
• High heel shoes can lead to foot, knee, or back problems.
• Body piercing and tattooing may transmit infections which are not always readily treated, especially when the result is hepatitis C. Allergic individuals may get into trouble from the metals or the tattoo chemicals. People with a lot of body piercings should take them out if they are getting surgery with electrical appliances involved or they might be burned. Usually they don't want to remove the hardware for fear that the holes will close.
• According to a report entitled "Children and minimagnets: an almost fatal attraction" by McCormick et al in volume 19 of the Emergency Medicine Journal during 2002, children may copy their older siblings by simulating body piercing with magnets. Even this apparently harmless practice has created a hazard when youngsters swallow the magnets perhaps requiring surgical removal or even causing bowel perforation, stick them in their noses where they have to be removed by ear, nose, and throat specialists if necrosis of the tissues is to be avoided, or experience severe pain from placing them on either side of the penis.
• Following fashion trends with regard to body image can lead to eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulemia.

Yes, we humans will go a long way in our attempts to attract the opposite sex, be fashionable, impress our peers, or just like the way we look in the mirror. In the Western world we may undergo surgery, in the Congo heads must be elongated instead of flattened, Chad women have their lips supported and stretched by metal rings, and in some places lips are even turned inside out, Hottentot men like their women to have large buttocks, and Chinese women deformed their feet to the point of agony by binding them tightly because small feet and difficulty walking was considered sexy.

In the end, I suppose, it really doesn't matter how you look. After all, it's your deep down personality that really counts, isn't it? And if you are prone to believe that this is true then I have a lovely antique bridge that you might be interested in purchasing.

Cartoons and Poems following each article are created and copyrighted by Dr. Ackerman and cannot be copied or reproduced without his permission. Copyright © 2006 by Marvin Ackerman, M.D.

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