When Alexa turned 16, she wanted a womanly figure.
“I just decided I wanted to get my boobs done,” said Alexa, now a 21-year-old senior at SMU, who asked for her last name not to be used.
“I asked my mom, and she was alright with it,” Alexa said.
At 16, Alexa wasn’t yet a woman, but between picking out the perfect outfit, driving the right car and with a celebrity obsessed culture surrounding her, she believed a breast augmentation was both necessary and acceptable for her small 5’2″ frame.
Her older sisters had always wanted to increase their bust lines, but never went the measures to do so. Alexa had TV show’s “Dr. 90210” Dr. Robert Rey perform her surgery.
“I definitely attracted a lot of attention,” Alexa said. “It was weird to have old men look at me like a woman.” Alexa, still 16 at the time, entered her first semester at SMU with saline implants, not expecting to learn a lesson or two about womanhood.
The pressures and rituals of beauty – dieting, tanning, waxing, makeup and plastic surgery – saturates the media, and people are reminded of it daily. Within the last 10 years, the number of cosmetic surgical procedures has increased in popularity among today’s youth.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, people between the ages of 19 and 34 accounted for 22 percent of the total million cosmetic procedures performed in 2008.
For minors 18 or younger, cosmetic surgical procedures tripled in 2007 with a total of 205,119 procedures in comparison to the 59,890 in 1997, reported by the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
Currently, liposuction and breast augmentations are the two most popular procedures according to a SurveyMonkey distributed to 37 SMU student participants released in October. If participants had the option to undergo surgery, 44 percent reported they would undergo liposuction, and 26 percent said breast augmentation.
Renee DeLisse said she hated her nose, considered undergoing rhinoplasty, but had a change of heart. “I like how my nose wrinkles up all cute when I smile,” the 23-year-old SMU senior said.
Alexa had her implants removed the following December, and said the implants inflicted too much back pain. Alexa also had grown uncomfortable to men gawking at her whenever she walked into a room.
“I was never really happier with bigger boobs,” Alexa said. Removing her implants “was the “best thing” she had ever done. Alexa said she realized she was more content with her natural and smaller figure.
Dr. Louis A. Bonaldi of Reno, NV, who was named one of America’s top plastic surgeons in the 2006-2007 “Guide to America’s Top Plastic Surgeons,” recommends cosmetic surgical procedures for people in need of anatomical reconfiguration.
Bonaldi said 75 percent of his clients undergo breast augmentation to correct pre-existing damages. He said prospective clients should do some homework before seriously considering surgery.
“People need to come to their own conclusion about surgery,” Bonaldi said.
He also mentioned that his clients are usually satisfied post-operation.
Nina Rivera, a 22-year-old senior at SMU said that she is pleased with her breast implants, which she has had for three years.
Rivera worked for a model agency, which offered to pay 50 percent of a breast augmentation.
Rivera said it was a good decision, and a decision she will never regret.
“If I had to go back in time, I [would] do it all over again,” Rivera said.
“What matters is feeling satisfied about your body, and sometimes surgery works, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Alexa said.
However, Alexa’s incident has not jaded her away from plastic surgery forever. Since she had her breasts removed, she has also had her nose reconstructed, and plans to have her chin reconstructed sometime in the near future.
