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I spent my teenage years lusting after countless boy bands, balancing in precariously high shoes and swigging vodka in the park. While I’m not advocating underage drinking- here at WNOL we never would- but there’s something about Vodkat and Superdrug’s own lippy that brings on a nostalgic sigh for the summers of my youth. I dreamt of spending my days with a Brylcreamed, JOOP soaked David Beckham, making hay in a lovely five bed in Buckhurst Hill. Alas how times have changed.
Today’s teenagers are being encouraged to follow their dreams and if a little drop of poison gets you there a little quicker then why not. After all a little drop on that apple helped sleeping beauty live happily ever after, why can’t a bit of Botox help 16-year-old Emma get on to the X-Factor? Because she’s 15!
We live in a culture were being famous for being famous is a perfectly acceptable career choice. Television shows like Celebrity Big Brother read like a who’s who of nobodies. Shagged a footballer recently? Lets give you a fashion column. Live in Chelsea and have no notable job to speak of? Lets thrust you on the TV.
Our obsession with body image is seeping into the next generation faster than the leak from Sharon Osborne’s implants. How or why it’s deemed acceptable for a teenager to get Botox is beyond me. A recent investigation by the Daily Mirror found that teens are spending the party season attending Botox parties. Botox parties? When I was 15 my mum let me pierce my nose and that was the talk of our little African community. Now there are mothers out there literally filling their daughters heads (or at least faces) with poison.
Queue 49 -year-old Sarah Burge, a trained aesthetic practitioner who regularly injects her 15-year-old daughter Hannah.
“I get my Botox and fillers direct from the manufacturer as I am a qualified practitioner. I use the same Botox on Hannah as I use on myself” And you’re proud?
This woman who has spent £500,000 on plastic surgery is happily flinging her insecurities on to her teenage daughter. I’m not going to bore you with a list of puns on the need for Sarah’s head to be examined because quite frankly anyone with half a brain can see how wrong this is. Kerry Campbell had her 8-year-old daughter taken into care after she revealed she regularly injected her before beauty pageants and so should Sarah Burge.
I’m not against cosmetic enhancement and when the time comes for my breasts to move south for the winter I’ll happily skip along to Harley Street for a little lift. But I am an adult. Letting a 15-year-old use Botox is just as bad as letting them smoke. You’re setting them up for a life with a highly dangerous and expensive addiction.
In today’s issue of the Daily Mail fashion journalist Liz Jones criticised H&M for super imposing women’s faces on to mannequins. Putting human faces on to a perfectly formed plastic physique is reiterating that women in their natural state are simply not good enough.
A survey by GirlGuiding UK found that 64% of 11-16 year-olds and 69% of 16-21 are not happy with their appearance compared to 18% of 7-11 year-olds. What happens to a girl that makes them loose confidence? Society does. The insecurities girls begin to develop at the age of ten turns into a “deep Unhappiness” that peaks between 16-21. How do we solve this? I know lets give them Botox.
But it’s not just the girls. TOWIE’S Harry Derbridge recently had Botox to prepare for his pantomime debut. A source close to the 17-year-old is ‘happy with the results’. What results? At 17 you don’t have wrinkles. Yes your forehead wrinkles when you smile- that strangely enough is what happens to faces.
Dr Jeya Prakesh an expert from Harley Street warns against Botox at a young age, as your face isn’t fully formed until you hit 25. Well neither is your personality. Any parent that allows their child to make such a life changing decision during puberty is an idiot and in the words of that wise man Jeremy Clarkson-should be taken outside and shot in front of their families.
Story by Florence Sogga
Picture courtesy of Mako Kungfu on Flickr