By Ghadeer Ghloum
KUWAIT: Physical appearances are the first thing people see as soon as they approach one another. Therefore, people tend to pay a lot of attention to their appearances in hopes of being positively viewed and socially accepted. In societies all around the globe, the amount of attention given to one's physical appearance is far greater than one's manners, character, inner peace and beauty.
This happens due to several problems that stem out of people's lack of knowledge about the multiplicity of normal body types and different facial features, which results in negative views of themselves and prioritizing appearances over genuine personality and qualifications. Due to the great number of people who focuses their attention and efforts on their physical appearance, cosmetic surgeries have become popular and new looks started to trend. With exaggerated attention paid to physical appearances and trends that are supported by social media, many people have developed an obsession of undergoing cosmetic surgeries, believing their original features are unattractive and socially ill-favored.
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According to psychiatrist Dr Hasan Al-Mosawi, undergoing unnecessary beautifying procedures stems from low self-esteem. "Many people suffer from low self-confidence nowadays and struggle with viewing themselves positively. They are always viewing themselves in a negative way according to their appearances without looking at their inner beauty and their valuable qualities and characteristics," he told Kuwait Times. People's obsession over physical appearances has shifted their focus from what actually holds their real value and replaced inner peace with chaos and uncomfortableness.
However, Dr Mosawi said not all motives behind a cosmetic procedure are due to low self-esteem, as he distinguished between necessary and unnecessary surgeries. "Necessary beautifying procedures occur in case of an accident that causes deformation of a certain part of the body; hence, a surgery is needed to fix that part and put it back in place and in its normal form," he said. Hence, undergoing cosmetic surgery for reasonable reasons does not count as an issue of low self-esteem or prioritizing outer beauty.
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Due to society's preference of certain beauty standards, people who do not have such features in their appearances find it hard to accept themselves and their original beauty, especially in the presence of social media that continually expose users to popular figures who have a certain face and body shape. Noujoud Yassine, who owns beauty clinic in Kuwait, said: "There are always trends that we notice a lot of people want to follow, such as nose jobs, the BBL, hourglass figure surgeries, cat eye procedure, etc. It all depends on what the client is seeking and who they are influenced with."
Thus, people who struggle with attracting social attention and acceptance try to compensate this gap by undergoing cosmetic surgery to copy the appearance of someone who is supposedly successful and socially accepted. "People usually head towards cosmetic surgeries because they want to copy the features of a popular personality. This delusion is due to continuous unacceptance of oneself, which results in developing an obsession for cosmetic surgeries," Dr Mosawi said. He added such people can become extremely vulnerable to any person's opinion and comments on their appearances. As soon as someone says something about any part of their face or body, they undergo cosmetic surgery to change how they look, because they always seek people's approval of their physical appearance.
Advanced cosmetic dentistry consultant Dr Fatima Dashti, who works at a specialized dental center in Kuwait, highlighted people's attempt to fit into society's physical beauty standards. "Every once in a while, a new trend comes up, such as the Hollywood smile and bunny teeth. As soon as one trend fades away, another trend emerges," she said.
The concept of beauty is not fixed. There are multiple types of beauty that every human being has in their own way. Therefore, Dr Mosawi encourages people to accept themselves and focus on improving their inner beauty instead of seeking short-term social acceptance through physical attractiveness and following trends. "Accepting oneself as it is and being confident about one's original looks and not comparing oneself to other people is the best solution to such an obsession," he said.
As a matter of fact, Dr Mosawi said that despite people's exaggerated attention on physical appearances, its real value remains on the margins once compared to genuine human qualities and inner beauty. "Working on one's inner beauty is way more important and valuable than appearances, because outer beauty will sooner or later fade. It has to change because it is vulnerable to age and other natural factors, whereas inner beauty remains solid and can hardly change. Being obsessed with one's outer beauty is a shallow thing compared to the importance of inner beauty," he stressed.