Annotated Bibliography #2

Annotated Bibliography

The Beauty Trap

Boodman, Sandra G. "For More Teenage Girls, Plastic Surgery." Washington Post, 26 Oct. 2004. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62540-2004Oct25.html>.

This is an excellent article by the Washington Post, written by Sandra Boodman that discusses the issue of teenagers and their obsession with plastic surgery.  It brings to bear the facts as presented by several experts such as psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke, a visiting scholar at Columbia University who studies girls and body image, as well as plastic surgeons who discuss how they decide which young girls will be authorized for surgery and which will not.  This article also discusses the potential complications of breast augmentations as presented on the FDA website that somehow many young women and their parents do not seem to want to pay attention to and also highlights a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine that discusses complications with breast feeding once augmentations have been performed.  The president of the ASPS and the chief of plastic surgery at Georgetown University Hospital, Scott L. Spear also weighs in to say that young women cannot possibly realize the impact of their choices at such a young age and do not see that these procedures are far more complicated “than pierced ears”.  This article will be very helpful for my argument, giving pathos  as I feel it shows that against all odds young women will choose these surgeries even if they have been told of the possible dangers showing a real desperation to “improve” themselves, against all odds.

"The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery." Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.surgery.org/media/statistics>.
The ASAPS  is the leading organization on aesthetic plastic surgery in the United States  it therefore has all the current statistics and press releases on the issues of plastic surgery. This website will be very helpful with showing the logos in my argument and it presents the statistics from as recently as 2011. Statistics such as national totals for cosmetic procedures and age and gender distribution for cosmetic procedures can be found on this website.  The press releases discuss a smorgasbord of issues including the safety of silicone breast implants, the dangers of childhood obesity and liposuction and “understanding women’s complicated relationship to the mirror”.

Perkins, Nancy. "Chasing Beauty: Cultural History of Beauty Obsession." The Morton Report. N.p., 22 Feb. 2012. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.themortonreport.com/home-away/health/cosmetic-surgery-will-never-be-the-solution/>.

Nancy Perkins of the Morton Report in a very recent article discusses as she puts it “science and beauty obsession have converged into an intoxicating and dangerous mix”.  The Morton Report is a website launched by a British writer Andrew Morton who is also the author of several biographies including one on Princess Diana entitled Diana: Her True Story.  As the title mentions, this article discusses the cultural history of the beauty obsession and speaks to the risks women have taken in the past from the Renaissance period in Italy (long before any media was an issue) where women used a toxic plant extract to dilate their pupils, to the Japanese women’s tradition of wrapping their feet because tiny feet were perceived as beautiful.  To the current day use of botulinum toxin and breaking facial bones in order to reconstruct faces, all because women think it enhances their beauty.  This article helps my argument by showing that the desire to be beautiful is biological because the evidence shows it started a very long time ago yet it also shows that with the bombardment of media images and a push by all the people who make money from  all the many beauty aids has the issue has become significantly worse.

Spettigue, Wendy, M.D., and Katherine A. Henderson, Ph.D. "Eating Disorders and the Role of the Media." Http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 14 Feb. 2004. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.

The National Center for Biotechnology Information was established in 1988 and is a division of the National Library of Medicine.   This abstract on their website written by two doctors, Wendy Spettigue, MD and Katherine Henderson Ph.D. speaks directly to the effect the media has had on people with eating disorders.  They highlight the many studies that have been performed on this issue and discuss how as the ideal for the perfect women has gotten thinner and thinner in the media so the incidence of eating disorders has risen and in fact if anything, the population has gotten fatter and fatter.  This website will help me with my argument that the media is exploiting the need for women to focus on beauty and as discussed also in this writing the beauty magazines significantly impact the development of young women’s ideas about themselves.  It says that 83% of young girls read beauty magazines for 4.3 hours every week and the Seventeen Magazine has a readership of 11,000,000. Kilbourne is also cited in this work for her documentary Killing us Softly, which I will be watching excerpts of on Utube which will also contribute to my argument on this topic.

I want to mention that although my proposal had two book possibilities “Reviving Ophelia” and “The well-dressed Ape” as possible sources,  upon closer scrutiny of those books I decided that they did not come close enough to the issue as I wish to present it, so I have therefore not included them.