Causes of Plastic Surgery Addiction
Cosmetic surgery addiction can be caused by a condition called body dysmorphic disorder, wherein an individual is preoccupied with a slight or imagined "abnormality' in their appearance, which a person without the disorder might interpret as a quirk, individualistic, or perfectly acceptable. This obsession often causes significant social or occupational impairment, as well as emotional problems. People with body dysmorphic disorder will often seek plastic surgery in order to alleviate their distress, but since they have a mental disorder and not a physical one, they will always find something new that is perceived to be "wrong" with them. Body dysmorphic disorder cannot be alleviated by plastic surgery, and can only be addressed by mentally coming to terms with reality.
Social factors also play a large role in plastic surgery addiction. There are several reality television shows that document the process of plastic surgery, generally in a positive light, and whenever a new star gets plastic surgery one can be sure that all the celebrity rags will toot their horns about it. We have a cult of celebrity here in America; so many people are obsessed or at least highly interested in the doings and superficial feelings of a tiny minority of people who are only famous because they are famous. And, for example, when someone such as Heidi Montag, who was already popular and deemed attractive, gets ten cosmetic operations, how must the average girl, who may be beautiful in her own way (probably more attractive than Heidi, truth be told), feel? Many girls already have image problems due to the media, so when they hear that famous, beautiful women are not, in fact, beautiful enough, they are hearing an extremely negative message about their self image. This may lead women to chase a dream of airbrushed beauty which is impossible, and thus turn to plastic surgery when the real solution is acceptance of self.
At the root of it all, it is possible to explain addiction to plastic surgery through semiology, which is the study of signs and symbols. A sign is theoretically composed of two elements - the signifier, which is the actual object, thing, or person, and the signified, which is what that object, thing, or person means to others e.g. the image as opposed to reality. For example what is signified by plastic surgery is wealth, beauty, class, and the condition of being famous. But the signifier of plastic surgery, or what it actually is, is people with poor self image seeking to gain acceptance in a society where they do not feel that they can be themselves or be liked by others unless they change. And this general problem endemic in our society today - that the image is more important than the thing which projects the image - has been well documented by famous semiologists like Umberto Eco and Jean Broulliard. If people really saw plastic surgery and the addiction to it for what it was, which is people with body dysmorphia, poor self image and the like taking the chance of mutilation in order to chase the dream of imaginary perfection, the numbers of people taking that chance would not have gone up drastically every year.