Obsessed with Appearance: How People Change their Bodies Just to Fit in

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Obsessed with appearance: How people are changing their bodies just to fit in
Introduction
This research incorporates several readings in showing the stated multiple perspectives that could be drawn and supported addressing the question: How Far Will We Go to Change Our Body Image? In essence, the readings include the following: Smooth Operations (715); All to be Tall (709); The Tyranny of the Normal (717); Do Thin Models Warp Girls’ Body Image? (705); From Body Image and Adolescents (698); and On Pins and Needles Defending Artistic Expression (703). Claim/thesis: The thesis/claim for this research is: People are becoming more and more mindful and conscious about their looks and would go to great lengths to change their image. Looks matter a lot. Nowadays, the society has changed greatly in various aspects as things like tattoos, cosmetic surgeries, and cosmetic limb-lengthening procedures continue to gain increasingly more popularity as people choose to change their body image. Moreover, adolescents are becoming more conscious and concerned regarding their body image.
Outline
According to Rose (704), tattoos have become very common amongst individuals who are below the age of 30 years. Studies show that over a third of American citizens below the age of 30 have tattoos, and the number continues to increase (Rose 705). Tattoos are mostly used as free self expression (Kirsten 12). Presently, some people who are vertically challenged go to great lengths to become tall. Such people feel embarrassed to be described as short and would pay for costly medical surgeries that cost around $80,000 as they opt for voluntary medical procedures that would increase their height (Kita 709). The medical procedure is limb lengthening. It is noteworthy that short people often experience discrimination ranging from the aggression they go through while in school to the behavior which they come across all through their professional and social life (Levy 56).
The number of African Americans seeking reconstructive or facial surgery increased by over three fold in a 5 year period between the year 1997 and 2002. This basically indicates the increasing affluence of blacks as well as the subtle easing of some long established cultural taboos against these practices. Many African American celebrities whose looks are vital to their livelihood have opted for facial or reconstructive surgery (Samuels 715). Typically, cosmetic surgery is often frowned upon by blacks, and the African American community also wants to shun any disparagement that may come from the community (Samuels 715). The mass killing of people at the Nazi extermination camps in Hitler’s Germany must make people aware of exactly how dangerous enforced physiological normality is whenever the definition of its strictures falls in bureaucrats and politicians’ hands. In addition, into what other hands could people logically anticipate it to fall in any society that people know or can envisage in the near future? (Fielder 719).
It is of note that in Hitler’s Germany, dwarfs along with other individuals considered as useless were taken to t...