A new study by researchers in Canada suggests that women’s magazines like The Oprah Magazine and Cosmopolitan downplay the emotional health risks of cosmetic surgery and contribute to the increasing medicalization of the female body.
Andrea Polonijo conducted the research as an undergraduate thesis in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The study, which she co-authored with UBC sociology professor Richard M. Carpiano, is published in the November 2008 issue of Women’s Health Issues.
For the study, Polonijo reviewed and coded the content of cosmetic surgery articles that appeared in the top five most sold English-language women’s magazines circulated in Canada from 2002 to 2006. The magazines were: Chatelaine, Cosmopolitan, O: The Oprah Magazine, Flare and Prevention.
Polonijo used content analysis to identify patterns of highlighting the risk and benefits of cosmetic surgery and coded the content according to types of surgical procedure, patients’ demographic information, risks and benefits of surgery, and emotional health indicators.
The results showed that:
- Articles tended to give readers detailed information about the physical health risks.
- 48 per cent of them discussed the impact of cosmetic surgery on emotional health, mostly linking it to enhanced emotional wellbeing, regardless of the emotional state of the patient before surgery.
- Of the articles that mentioned emotional health, only 18 per cent mentioned that cosmetic surgery can negatively affect emotional wellbeing.
- The articles also tended to use descriptions given by men to define standards of women’s attractiveness to justify cosmetic surgery.
- 29 per cent of the articles discussed the impact that women’s cosmetic surgery has on men.
- A disproportionate number of articles were devoted to breast implants and cosmetic surgery in women aged 19 to 34.
The authors concluded that:
“These findings are consistent with arguments in the research literature that women’s magazines contribute to the medicalization of the female body. “
Cosmetic surgery is generally portrayed as a risky — but worthwhile — option for women to enhance both their physical appearance and emotional health,” they added.
Polonijo said in a press statement that:
“Alongside beauty, clothing and diet advice, women’s magazines present cosmetic surgery as a normal practice for enhancing or maintaining beauty, becoming more attractive to men and improving emotional health.”
They tend to discuss the physical risks more than the emotional health risks, she added, and explained that research studies have found even when cosmetic surgery is physically successful, emotional health problems such as anxiety and depression can emerge that weren’t there before surgery.
Polonijo also found that magazines had a tendency to present two “ideal” candidates for cosmetic surgery: the unhappy, lonely and insecure woman who is looking for a way to boost confidence, and the successful, attractive, confident woman who views cosmetic surgery as a way to hold onto her “perfection”.
Carpiano said that those two profiles represented the extreme ends of a wide range of possible attitudes and most women would see themselves somewhere in between:
“This potentially allows for cosmetic surgery to be presented as an option for many women regardless of their preoperative emotional state,” he added.
“Representations of Cosmetic Surgery and Emotional Health in Women’s Magazines in Canada.”
Andrea N. Polonijo, Richard M. Carpiano.
Women’s Health Issues Vol. 18, Issue 6, Pages 463-470, November 2008.
DOI: 10.1016/j.whi.2008.07.004
Sources: Journal abstract, University of British Columbia.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD