“Plastic Makes Perfect”:<i>My Beautiful Mommy</i>, Cosmetic Surgery, and the Medicalization of Motherhood

Abate, Michelle Ann

doi:10.1080/00497878.2010.505152

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Some women in the Swedish study were so deeply dissatisfied with their bodies that they viewed plastic surgery as a means of returning to a more familiar body (ibid.). Throughout the West, the 'mommy makeover' (a trio of procedures including breast augmentation, liposuction and abdominoplasty) has been discussed by feminists as a disturbing but growing trend among women who want to 'get their [pre-pregnancy] bodies back' (see Abate 2010).…”

Section: Post-pregnant Embodimentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shapes of motherhood: exploring postnatal body image through photographs

Nash

2013

Journal of Gender Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article contributes to, and extends, feminist and visual sociological scholarship by examining how a sample of pregnant women in Australia documented their postpartum experiences through digital photographs. It is argued that photography is powerful in helping women to articulate the ways in which subjectivities and bodily boundaries are reframed in the postpartum period. Dressing is used as a key example to demonstrate this. A further aim of this paper is to identify whether women's photographs can be used to contest dominant cultural ideologies and how we may read these using feminist perspectives. Throughout this article, women's individual embodied experiences of postpregnancy are reflected in the production and viewing of their own photographic images.

show abstract

Section: Post-pregnant Embodimentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shapes of motherhood: exploring postnatal body image through photographs

Nash

2013

Journal of Gender Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As I have argued, there is an entire system that must be considered when determining the ethics of cosmetic surgeries, especially as the profession has become much more aggressive in its advertising and advocacy through television shows such as Nip/Tuck, Extreme Makeover, and The Swan (see Heyes, 2007;Sender, 2014). This normalization of cosmetic surgery has even seeped into children's picture books (Abate, 2010)! As such, one cannot change this system by simply changing the code of ethics for cosmetic surgeons.…”

Section: Ethics and Cosmetic Surgerymentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical Dimensions of Cosmetic Surgery

Lunceford

2016

International Journal of Technoethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The promise of cosmetic surgery is that one can reshape his or her body to remove perceived defects and thus have a perfect body. Although in practice this is not always the result, many continue to pursue this potential. One extreme example of this impulse is actress Heidi Montag, who underwent ten different plastic surgery procedures in one day. But the decision to undergo cosmetic surgery is not made in a vacuum. Individuals are influenced by others, including the media, the surgeons, and themselves. This essay uses Montag's experience to explore four ethical considerations surrounding cosmetic surgery—the surgeon, the patient, the media, and society—and concludes with a discussion of potential correctives for ethical failures in each of these areas.

show abstract

“…Another societal impact worthy of consideration is the high level of importance that Western cultures place on physical appearance (Lindsay et al, 2012), where the physical ideal is influenced by patriarchal attitude (Abate, 2010;Lirola & Chovanec, 2012), where women are visually presented as young, slim, and beautiful. This can result in some women having a resigned acceptance regardless of age that their bodies are imperfect and require fixing or improving (Lirola & Chovanec, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Cycling Be Addictive? A Qualitative Interview Study Among Amateur Female Cyclists

Baker

Griffiths

Calado

2021

Int J Ment Health Addiction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Exercise and healthy eating are proposed as a recommended lifestyle by the World Health Organization with several positive outcomes, including a decrease in pathologies such as diabetes and reduction in mortality rates. However, research suggests that there is the potential for exercise behaviour to become addictive among a small minority of individuals, which detrimentally impacts their lives. The risk of exercise addiction increases for endurance sports, of which cycling is considered one, given the intense physical and psychological demands, due to elevation and distance, in amateur cycling events. Understanding the risk factors specific to cycling is worthy of investigation, as it is not clear whether cycling can become an addiction. Using the ‘addiction component model’ as a framework, qualitative analysis was used to determine whether symptoms of addiction were present among a sample of eight female cyclists. Through the use of thematic analysis, the results showed that symptoms of addiction were reported by participants. Three themes were generated from research interviews comprising ‘addiction components’ (i.e. salience, conflict, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, and cycling despite health problems), ‘enabling infrastructure’ (i.e. supportive work, supportive family and friends), and ‘striving for excellence’ (i.e. needing to be the best, pushing too far, and having unrealistic expectation), currently measured in the ‘addiction component model’. There were also novel themes including ‘cycling above health’ where the participant continues to cycle against medical advice; ‘enabling infrastructure’ where work, family, and friends are accepting of cycling; and ‘striving for excellence’ where the participants ‘needing to be the best’ when comparing themselves to their peers, ‘pushing too far’ to achieve the goal set, and finally ‘unrealistic expectations’ resulting in negative comparison to peers. These findings suggest that addiction to cycling should be investigated further, and implications may necessitate clinical intervention to find alternative coping mechanisms when exercise is not available to an individual as there is a likelihood that individuals will continue to exercise in spite of injury and against medical advice.

show abstract

“Plastic Makes Perfect”:My Beautiful Mommy, Cosmetic Surgery, and the Medicalization of Motherhood

Cited by 10 publications

References 2 publications

Shapes of motherhood: exploring postnatal body image through photographs

Shapes of motherhood: exploring postnatal body image through photographs

Ethical Dimensions of Cosmetic Surgery

Can Cycling Be Addictive? A Qualitative Interview Study Among Amateur Female Cyclists

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About