The Teen Face Book
American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
1989
These kids on the cover look familiar. Isn’t that one girl from Family Ties?
Anyway, what bothers me is this is a book aimed at teens and seems to be full of lots of information on how you as a teenager can fix your face problems with plastic surgery. Parents hate you? Can’t get a date? The answer is a “little bit of work!”
Although this book contains some information on acne treatment and healthy skin, the second half of the book is all about the plastic surgery. Not sure I believe we should be telling teens that plastic surgery will fix the all the problems they are having with life–especially with medical data from 1989. Short answer: a more balanced attitude about cosmetic surgery and something within the last 5 years would be more appropriate. Definitely a weeder!
Mary
First off, I agree 100% with your stance on cosmetic surgery for teens being a no-no–it’s patently absurd just from the simple and irrefutable standpoint of them still having developing to do. With that said, I don’t know if it’s the job of a librarian to put their personal belief systems into the weeding decision process. If the reason to weed is because of outdated medical information, yes, but if the reason to weed is because teenagers having plastic surgery is wrong (which again, I agree it is), that’s irrelevant and not a good reason to do so. That’s like weeding a book with a topic on a certain type of religion or certain form of government or a certain type of sexual persuasion. You have to separate your personal belief system from the weeding process and do it – obviously – for the right reasons.
Totally agree. I also wonder how good could this title be if it is authored by the industry association. Is it a bit like having a anti smoking book by Phillip Morris? I got the feeling this was a book about peddling plastic surgery to teens rather than straight up info.
Wow this is definitely a weeder. Current teens’ first thought on seeing “facebook” isn’t going to be plastic surgery. It’s a little website we like to call facebook.com
Because it’s medical information that’s very out of date, yes, it needs to be weeded.
When it comes to plastic surgery I’m of two minds. First off, I want to have some very badly. But for young teens it doesn’t seem right unless they’re disfigured in an accident or need it for medical reasons – like nose jobs for kids with breathing problems.
Shelve it next to these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uglies_series
The Uglies (and the rest of the series) are great books about what happens when a society requires that everyone looks a certain way (echoes of a classic Twilight Zone episode). I work in the junior high school library and these books are very popular.
Good idea!
Also Bill—I agree with you too, I believe information is power, and we don’t censor according to our own values, but this has many valid reasons to be weeded. If you need a book on plastic surgery get a good new one
Have you read the series? The over-arching theme is that “pretty” and “ugly” are relative terms. The heroine eventually finds that Pretties aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and she’d prefer being “ugly”. It’s all about the problems with a society based entirely on popularity and appearance.
Teen plastic surgery is entirely appropriate when the person has a body part — like a crooked or overly large nose or female -ike breasts on a guy — and when it’s done in capable hands.
A condition known as gynecomastia results in womanly breasts on a teen boy. The condition causes him shame, embarrassment, social withdrawal and is likely to lead to eating disorders in a misguided attempt at loosing what is often called “man boobs.” One East Coast surgeon — Elliott Jacobs, M.D. — leads the way in diagnosing the condition and performing the surgery. Dr. Jacobs has literally hundreds of before and after pictures of teen patients.
As for breast augmentation on a teen girl, the best advice is to wait until age 22 when development is complete.
Rhinoplasty is also appropriate on teens when it causes problems with self-esteem and confidence. Robert Kotler, M.D. is the leading authority on that.
“Rhinoplasty is also appropriate on teens when it causes problems with self-esteem and confidence”
Life’s tough, get a helmet, develop a sense of humor about it.
Seriously, teens hate everything about themselves at one point or another. Encouraging teens to get plastic surgery to “help” their self-esteem is disingenuous.
Playing devil’s advocate here because, like I said, I want plastic surgery myself.
Being a teen is hard. Being a teen who’s bullied constantly is harder. Even now, at 33, I can’t just “get over” a lot of the cruelty I suffered because of my weight. Food thrown at me, boys mooing and oinking. And no matter how many diets or how much I exercised I could never get thin. (Course now it looks like I have a condiction called polycystic ovary syndrome which leads to, amongst other things, weight gain.)
I was bullied so much that there were days I wanted to kill myself – or my bullies.
Heck, I’m STILL bullied as an adult. Always getting messages about how I’m an ugly beast. Men saying things like “You’re a nice person, but you’re too fat to be seen with in public.”
So you know what? If it keeps some teenage girl from attempting suicide or some teen boy from bringing a gun to school, and therapy doesn’t help – let them get a nose job.
WOW! Do you go around looking for blogs about plastic surgery?
With all due respect jamisings, cosmetic fixes will not address the core issues. One must learn individual pride and self respect that is separate from what others think or how others may judge you. If you feel plastic surgery is the answer, so be it, you’re an adult, but I would think a majority of teenagers have had a tough time of it and have come out stronger as adults because of it. I did not have an enjoyable time of it at all in my youth, but I took very deliberate steps to improve myself in all ways on my own for me. It may have taken until my 20s to start to pull it all together to my satisfaction (I’m 37 now), but it did work. I’m still trying to improve in all ways–no external help needed. I’m happy with who and what I am, and I’d hate to rob a teenager of the ability to take that same fulfilling – and yes, difficult – journey.
And all I’m saying is by removing one of the things that the teen is bullied over might allow them to focus on other issues. Maybe if my parents had let me get liposuction back when I was 140 (I should be, medically speaking, 135) I would’ve felt good enough about myself that I could then take the bullying over other issues. Like the fact I’d rather listen to disco then rap or big band then heavy metal. I was already a freak in school because I loved people like Elvis Presley instead of Axl Rose. Add to that I was fat and I grew up – and still live in – a southern California beach city – it’s a lot of pressure.
Maybe if I could’ve felt good about myself as a teen my first and only boyfriend wouldn’t have been an abusive jerk. Maybe now I wouldn’t be 33, 240 lbs, and sitting here replying to a blog about a book that I agree needs to be weeded, and instead be out on my day off doing something fun.
Maybe I still would’ve ended up this way because I’d still be bullied for my taste in music, the fact that I like to read, and that I believe in God, but don’t believe that there is “one true religion” but rather many paths to the same destination. Maybe plastic surgery wouldn’t have fixed my problems.
But you also must notice that I wrote “If therapy doesn’t help” – I advocated therapy first, plastic surgery as a last resort.
I still want it. Not just for my weight but also due to acne scars, scars from mole removal, and scars from ingrown hairs. There’s also areas on my body that all the excercise in the world won’t fix that I want fixed.
Like I said, if therapy does not help the teen in question, let him or her have a nose job or a little lipo. Sometimes looking better on the outside allows you to focus on the inside because you’re no longer distracted by the bump on your nose or your love handles.
Still, the book itself is out of date medically speaking and does need to be weeded.
That would be “lose,” not LOOSE. Thank you.
Advocating liposuction for a teenager is flat out wrong unless the child’s life is in danger. In fact, any type of plastic surgery has significant risk associated with it, just like any surgery. Something like liposuction should be the last resort for someone, period. The person in question should always try to lose the weight the right way first – eat less, eat healthy and exercise. Again, we’re talking about getting at the root of a problem here, not doing something cosmetic to cover it up. Many people who have had liposuction or bands have gone right back to their original weights because the habits that got them there in the first place didn’t change. A teenager in particular has an advantage because there’s a greater chance for their skin to bounce back and minimize all the other cosmetic negatives associated with losing a lot of weight later in life (often times the clinically obese who lose a great deal of weight need to have a lot of their extra skin surgically removed). Anyway, it’s all a moot discussion in relation to the book and we’re way off topic at this point. Good luck with overcoming your issues, jamisings. It’s rarely too late to do so.
Old book, out of date information, weed it. If kids have questions about plastic surgery they should talk to their doctor and their parents, not a creepy-looking 20-year-old book.
Er…doesn’t FaceBook mean something different now?
Those baggy, slouchy clothes on the cover would be enough to make me weed this quaint little relic.
That blonde girl, BTW? Too pretty to be Tina Yothers.
Highly reminiscent of a current TV show aired to my market called “The Doctors.” One might think that was a show about medical questions, and they do usually include one or two of those sorts of topics. The raison d’etre for the program, though, is for cute young doctors of both genders to pimp various pharmaceuticals and plastic surgery procedures. Pretty danged Retin-A of them.