[lit-ideas] Re: "No dating please - we're American"
- From: Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 14:40:00 EDT
Hi,
I have three colleagues and numerous friends who have found their mates via
online dating services. On the plane yesterday, there was a big ad for what
has become quite the rage in KC--the set up is that you sign up with various
criteria (I think-I've not been <g>) and then get matched with a member of the
opposite sex for (I think) about a ten-minute conversation. At the end, you
decide if there are any that you would like to see again--and if they do the
same
to you, then you get matched together and know you are both interested.
The online services seem to range from just posting about yourself and to
your interests to filling out questionaires which go rather indepth as to your
beliefs, etc.
I am not sure that it takes away from the matching that is done via friends,
co-wrkers, family members or from meeting potential dates via volunteering or
sports or places of faith or whatever served in the past to create matches. I
think it is just another option.
I cannot believe (almost) Julie's post about the sex education stuff in her
kids' school. In my child's school district, they are very careful about
making sure that parents have the option to view anything prior to it being
discussed with the kids and/or not having their kids see it.
I was thinking, though, of how it really does seem to not be 'sex' that the
kids are after--I would agree with that--but other aspects of what fills a void
in the human psyche. OR, it may be that thing called peer pressure (like the
son who was dressing like a gangsta because everyone else was doing so...)
and then I read this...and was thinking of the quote in it about how the girl
was being teased as to her size...peer pressure by who? girls or boys? and
why?
Because of sex? Because of a need for attention? This trumps safety?
Marlena in Missouri
Teens Getting Breast Implants for Graduation
By Susan Kreimer - WeNews correspondent
(WOMENSENEWS)--This summer 17-year-old Aubrie Wills is getting a special
graduation present. It's not a new wardrobe, a laptop computer or a trip to
Cancun. It's a set of breasts.
"If I go to college, then no one's going to know my boobs were small," said
the Grapevine High School senior who endures teasing in suburban Dallas. "It
would be a lot more evident if I did it in the middle of the school year."
Her mother, grandmother, two aunts and stepmother have implants. Aubrie, who
turns 18 in July, hopes to enhance her 32A cups to a small C. "If my mom is
offering to pay for it now, why not?" she said.
Last year, 3,841 women 18 or younger underwent breast augmentation, a
24-percent jump from 3,095 in 2002, which represents a 19-percent increase from
2,596
in 2001, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Only 978
girls had the procedure in 1992. (Women between 19 and 34 account for a large
segment of those getting implants; 114,005 last year.)
More teens visit plastic surgeons this time of year. "You see it around
graduation," said Dr. Rod J. Rohrich, the society's president. "You see it
around
holidays and spring break, especially around the Christmas season."
The phenomenon is taking off across the country, but doctors say implants are
especially popular in Texas and California. "Breasts are a fashion item,"
said Dr. Garry Brody, professor of plastic surgery at the University of
Southern
California in Los Angeles. "In the 1920s--the flapper era--women were binding
their breasts to make them look smaller to suit the fashions."
"When I graduated high school in 1990, the big thing was nose jobs," said Jo
Trizila, director of media relations for the Greater Dallas Chamber. Now, 8 of
her 10 friends have implants. Those who couldn't afford them took out a loan.
Body Image Trumps Safety
With television shows like "The Swan" showcasing plastic surgery, more teens
view breast augmentation as a commonplace procedure.
A 17-year-old who saw Dr. Edward Melmed before graduation "thought it would
be a fun thing to do," said the Dallas plastic surgeon, who removes implants
and testified before the Food and Drug Administration's advisory panel in
October. "They regard it as having your hair done or getting a new watch. She
had no
concept that this was a serious operation."
"We tell them it's real surgery," said Rohrich, chair of plastic surgery at
the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. "It has real
risks."
But for many teens, appearance trumps caution. "Our biggest concern with
adolescents is that they may not necessarily appreciate the relative permanence
of
the changes," said Dr. David Sarwer, a psychologist at the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine's Center for Human Appearance in Philadelphia.
He
has gathered anecdotes about "suburbs of big cities where cosmetic surgery is
a relatively common Sweet 16 or high school graduation gift."
Dr. Douglas Senderoff of New York, who practices in Manhattan and Westchester
County, says minds are often made up before consultations with him begin.
Several 17-year-olds inquired about implants, he recalled, including a teen
with
severe asymmetry. Insurance covered implant surgery for one breast and
reshaping the other.
When parents ponied up $7,000 for breast enlargement--a cost that varies
depending on location--"they thought it was important for their (child's)
well-being," said Senderoff, who turns away girls under 18. "At 16 or 17, you
may be
very skinny. By 18, you may fill out a little more."
Try telling that to teens who admire full-breasted magazine models. "We get
calls from teen-age girls like, 'I'm getting my implants next week. What do I
need to know?'" said Diana Zuckerman, a psychologist and president of the
Washington-based National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families.
"Teen-age girls have the worst body image."
Unanswered Questions
"In the patients I'm treating, it's severe lack of breast tissue," said Dr.
Susan Kolb, a plastic surgeon and holistic medicine specialist in Atlanta.
"It's not that they have a B and want to go to a C."
Kolb knows how they feel. As a flat-chested 31-year-old Air Force doctor, she
decided it was time to change. After surgery in 1985, she experienced a
common complication known as capsular contracture--tightening of scar tissue -
--around the right implant. Years later, her left implant leaked silicone. She
developed fibromyalgia and other immune-related disorders along with
neurological
disease. In 1997, she traded those implants for smooth saline.
"A lot more research needs to be done on the safety of breast implants," said
Kolb, 49, an expert on saline and silicone complications. "There are a lot of
unanswered questions in my mind." Risks include surgical complications from
anesthesia, excessive bleeding and infection.
Over time implants rupture or deflate, requiring additional surgeries. This
can happen immediately, within months, several years or later after the initial
procedure. With saline implants, women sense a change more easily. But the
thicker silicone-gel implants maintain a better shape, compromising detection
of
a rupture.
Implants also can make it more difficult for mammography to pinpoint breast
cancer. Removing them could result in loss of breast volume, distortion and
wrinkling.
To inform teens about the health hazards, Kathy Keithley Johnston visits
Missouri's secondary schools. She passes around an implant in health education
classes and shows graphic photographs of girls disfigured after implant removal.
"We want to be the primary clearinghouse of information in the U.S. on breast
implants," said Johnston, a registered nurse and executive director of Toxic
Discovery in Columbia, Mo., which reaches out to high schools and colleges
nationwide.
Johnston, who turns 53 this month, remembers being teased as a flat-chested
teen. In 1984, she was implanted at no cost in Midland, Texas, as a poster
child for a manufacturer's video. She co-founded the advocacy organization in
1995, the year after autoimmune disease compelled her to part with implants.
The
plastic surgeon had assured her they would last a lifetime. It turned out to be
a lifetime of pain and suffering.
Cindy Fuchs-Morrissey underwent a bilateral mastectomy at 35 after three
silicone-gel sets to correct a deformity. She got the first set at 18.
"The surgery was a birthday present from my parents," said Fuchs-Morrissey, a
46-year-old mother of three girls in Macon, Mo., who suffers from multiple
sclerosis. She believes her 14-year-old daughter Hilary's scleroderma, a
systemic sclerosis, is linked to silicone crossing the placental barrier.
In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration approved saline implants for women
18 and older. Its recommendation is only advisory because breast implants,
unlike medications, are not regulated by the FDA. Silicone-gel implants are not
approved for marketing and are available to women only through FDA-approved
clinical studies.
At 19, Kacey Long went from 34B to 34D while yearning to belong to the "ritzy
culture" at Baylor University in Waco. This past September, about three years
later, she had the implants removed due to excruciating pain and silicone
poisoning.
"My best friend's mom worked for my plastic surgeon for 12 years, and she
received breast implants six months before me," said Long, now a 22-year-old
graduate student in special education at Texas A and M University-Commerce.
"She
said that in her time at the office, no one ever had any problems. So I really
thought that I had inside info and that these devices were completely 'safe'
and maintenance-free.
"I am still paying on my augmentation surgery," she added, "even though my
breast implants are now at home with me in a jar, where they should have been
all along."
Susan Kreimer is a freelance medical writer in New York City.
For more information:
National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families-- - Implant
Information Project: - http://www.breastimplantinfo.org/
Humantics Foundation-- - Breast Implants: Recovery and Discovery: -
http://www.humanticsfoundation.com/
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