Article Summary

Samantha Barbas article, ‘Weighty Issues’, brings up many important points regarding the popular strive for beauty. People striving for this beautiful image, are often having numerous plastic surgeries performed to fit in with society. Barbas states that this physical sculpting has become the norm.
Barbas asks readers a tough question, “What are the possibilities for individual agency within existing cultural systems of physical coercion and regulation?” So many social aspects have made physical appearance one of the main criteria of individual identity and worth. These problems with beauty and society date back to 1880 and 1920 when cultural symbolism of fatness and thinness reversed. (American Quarterly) When Americans started becoming more aware and educated on nutrition, weight started becoming an social issue. According to Barbas, “A think body represented not only superior knowledge of the new off science, but one’s ability to purchase such costly foods as vegetables and lean meats, rather an the cheap, starchy staples associated with the immigrant poor”. The relationship between cosmetic surgery and celebrity culture, both started in the early twentieth century. This fad will continue to rise, with national consumer culture, popularization of commercial entertainment, and increasing influence of the media. Barbas goes into many other authors opinions of this topic, always going back to how it is effecting the rise of plastic surgery. She talks about Virginia Blums theory that once you have plastic surgery you will either want or have it again. This obsession with plastic surgery to maintain or achieve beauty, is one of the main reasons for the increase of plastic surgery.