Protect Children from Online Cosmetic Surgery Apps & Games – “Plastic Surgery Princess!”
Author: WUNRN
Date: October 5, 2017
“Plastic Surgery Princess:” How Plastic Surgery Apps & Games Are Impacting Children
The makeover apps with names such as ‘Plastic Surgery Princess’ and ‘Pimp My Face’ – that are widely gaining popularity. (Screengrab)
By Eve Dugdale Special to Al Arabiya English Sunday, 2 July 2017
How much attention do you pay to the apps your children play online?
If they’re brightly coloured and you see cartoon characters on the screen do you assume they’re kid-friendly and exercise little control?
Well it could be time to wise-up to the world of apps as a ‘shocking’ report revealed that children as young as nine are being targeted by online plastic surgery games and apps.
The makeover apps with names such as ‘Plastic Surgery Princess’ and ‘Pimp My Face’ – that are widely gaining popularity among kids in the Middle East – have been condemned by experts who want to see them banned.
The UK’s Nuffield Council on Bioethics has urged app stores to wake up to their responsibilities and clamp down on children’s cosmetic games.
Despite working in the ‘improvement’ industry, the call for an outlaw on these kind of apps is something Dubai-based aesthetician Rebecca Treston agrees with.
She says: “My husband and I always tell our daughters how beautiful they are and how we wouldn’t change a thing. They know what I do but only in so much as that I help people improve their skin and teach them to look after it themselves.
“I absolutely disagree with these apps. I think it’s terrible that people can be taught that it’s so easy to change their looks.”
But with the dramatic rise of cosmetic and plastic surgery in the Middle East, is it really apps that are going to be what gets under children’s skin rather than the real life modified mummies on the streets?
Web developer and dad-of-one Paul Hammond has a background in the computer game industry and says it’s good to try out the apps your children are using before panicking.
“When it comes to the specific apps in question, I’ve not actually seen any of them so I find it hard to comment without getting specific,” he explains. “Often there are hysterical responses to the perceived threats that video games pose, and in many cases when you actually go beyond the headlines you realise that the reality is somewhat different to what the hysterical reporting would have you believe. The idea of a plastic surgery app sounds potentially damaging, but for all I know the app could be about apply plastic surgery to people who have had an accident.
“I’m always aware of the games my daughter plays. I try to find educational games for her and I think the iPad can be a fantastic resource for teaching if used sparingly and if the focus is primarily on games that teach her things. I never let Chloe play games completely on her own, and try to limit the time she spends on them.”
Maybe parents are right to panic though, suggests Clinical Psychologist Tara Wyne.
The doctor, who is also clinical director at Lighthouse mental health clinic in Dubai says that “any content that children consume has impact and influence.”
She adds: “If a child as young as eight engages with a plastic surgery game or app where they are encouraged to make people look better and prettier, there is an inherent assumption and value judgement about looks and rating looks as being better or worse or more or less desirable. Children will immediately buy into an idea that it is acceptable to measure people’s worth according to their looks and also acceptable to pass comments and judgements on others on such superficial matters. We are thereby teaching our children some ways of being that are socially divisive and discriminatory.”
Doctor Wyne says children don’t have the maturity to deal with certain feelings and it’s essential that parents we protect them where possible.
She adds: “Children learn to evaluate themselves. They will grow self-conscious way before they are emotionally equipped to handle it and will assume that if they aren’t perfect they are defective and should be ashamed of being so. There are incredibly serious implications to our children being exposed to this kind of content and experience.
“Children will make a very direct link between looks and happiness which will not, in the long-term, prove to be a good basis to achieve happiness at all.”
TEACH THEM THAT THEY’RE GOOD ENOUGH!
As parents it’s only natural that we want to tell our children that they’re the most beautiful in the world, to praise everything they do and tell them they excel at everything they try their hand at.
But Doctor Tara Wyne says it’s important that parents help to give their children a sense of “grounded realism and honesty”.
“Our aim should be to teach our children that they’re good enough. We have to say that we love them no matter what, that we value their gifts and talents but that not all gifts and talents are evenly distributed. One child might look like a Disney princess but another won’t, but she might be a star at school. Parents have to model a value driven life where children see people are treated with equal respect irrespective of their looks.”
Website Link Includes Video.
Protect Children from Online Cosmetic Surgery Apps – Report +
The Plastic Surgery Simulator app. Photograph: Screengrab
By Sarah Boseley Health Editor – 22 June 2017
Children as young as nine are the target of cosmetic surgery apps and makeover games that are likely to make them feel dissatisfied with their own faces and bodies, a new report warns.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is calling for social media sites to investigate the apps and take them down, warning that they have a pernicious effect on the young, who may be tempted to go under the knife. “We’ve been shocked by some of the evidence we’ve seen, including makeover apps and cosmetic surgery ‘games’ that target girls as young as nine,” said Jeanette Edwards, professor of social anthropology at the University of Manchester, who chaired the council’s inquiry.
“There is a daily bombardment from advertising and through social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat that relentlessly promote unrealistic and often discriminatory messages on how people, especially girls and women, ‘should’ look,” said Edwards.
Apps and online games are available that encourage girls to play at plastic surgery. Some, such as Plastic Surgery Princess and Plastic Surgery Simulator, allow them to alter the image of their own face and body. Others, such as Dream Cosmetic Surgery are games featuring an “ugly” princess or “fat” woman who can be made beautiful if she goes under the knife.
A pressure group called Endangered Bodies has more than 20,000 signatures for a petition calling on Apple, Google and Amazon to remove the apps. The Nuffield Council said it was in full support.
The report says the apps are part of a wider culture that promotes idealised bodies and certain looks. Young girls take selfies and can edit their image on a site such as Snapchat in pursuit of as many “likes” as possible from their friends. There are makeover shows on television. “Advertising and marketing reinforce the view that striving to be beautiful and attractive will bring happiness and success,” said Edwards.
Instagram and TV celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, part of the Kardashian family, have a powerful influence. Jenner, now 19, makes no secret of having changed her appearance substantially through cosmetic surgery. “Celebrities, and the homogenous look of some celebrities, play a large part in determining what young people ‘should’ look like,” says the report.
Bullied teenagers increasingly want to have cosmetic surgery, says survey
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The report calls for a ban on offering “walk-in” cosmetic procedures, such as Botox injections and fillers, to anyone under the age of 18. While some clinics say they would not treat anyone under that age, there are no regulations to prevent it, the report says. “There are legal age limits for having tattoos or using sunbeds. Invasive cosmetic procedures should be regulated in a similar way,” said Edwards.
The authors are concerned about a general lack of regulation and say they consider it unethical that cosmetic products such as dermal fillers that have not been through safety and efficacy checks can be easily obtained – and that there is nothing to stop unqualified people from providing them to the public.
Mark Henley, a plastic surgeon and member of the council’s inquiry group, said: “We need to overturn the belief that fillers are risk-free. I’ve seen serious and long-term injuries from fillers in my clinic. Even fillers injected properly can cause lumps [granulomas] that have to be surgically removed. They have even been known to cause blindness and loss of facial soft tissues in rare cases.”
The report recommends that the Department of Health should make all dermal fillers prescription-only. That will limit which fillers can be used and ensure that those who prescribe them take professional responsibility for their injection.
The experts say that progress on protecting people who consider cosmetic surgery has been made since the Keogh report of 2013, but that the regulation that was introduced has been only voluntary. The Nuffield Council calls on the government to fully implement the Keogh recommendations to make regulation of those providing cosmetic surgery procedures, the places they are carried out and the products themselves compulsory.
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