Cosmetic surgery used to be a trend followed only by millionaires, models, and actors. The procedures were very expensive and somewhat considered to be extravagant and reserved to those individuals who had a "public figure" to maintain, or whose income depended directly on how good they looked.

The drastic increase in popularity that cosmetic surgery has had over the past three decades has rendered this type of medical procedures much more affordable and nowadays basically anybody with a decent credit history may walk into a plastic surgeon's office and begin to transform him or herself into a better and younger looking person.

Back in the sixties and seventies the prominent plastic surgery procedure performed was the facelift. Than the breast augmentation craze exploded and with it the controversy about the danger of silicon implants and all the correlated risks. Ever changing technology, as usual, has quickly overcome those problems and nowadays it is not too unusual to find grandmothers, mothers and daughters with perfectly perky augmented breasts and all looking so young to be easily confused for sisters.

The cosmetic surgery "menu" has grown to compete that of an coffee shop as per the number of choices offered to both man and women. Eyelid lifts, breast implants, liposuctions, breast augmentations, botox injections, tummy tucks are only the basic procedures.

As a man, husband and father, who has witnessed the process beginning with the wishes, and then the worries about the risks not to mention the post surgery recovery process with a lot of very real, but usually non anticipated, physical pain, repeatedly, times and times again as my mother in law, wife and both my daughters underwent different types of cosmetics surgery, I have found myself wondering if we, as human beings, may be loosing appreciation for what mother nature has so kindly and miraculously given us at birth.

It is my impression that the fashion industry, supported by the media, are pushing us toward a restricted number of generalized stereotypes of men and women which are starting to look more and more like the idealistic examples of statuesque Greek beauty and destined to become eventually... identical, as if we were really made of "plastic" in a sort of mass production assembly line.

I do understand, support and encourage, cosmetic surgery as a mean of correcting birth defects and disfiguration caused by injuries or degenerative diseases, but just to change the shape of your nose because you want to look like a certain actress or model... seem to be not worth the risks and pain associated with the cosmetics surgery procedure.

But then again, after all said, I recently noticed that I start to look more and more like my father because my hairline is quickly receding and I have to admit it... I have been entertaining the thought of hair transplant.

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