Aesthetic plastic surgery is getting younger and younger. According to the data of the "2022 Medical Aesthetic Industry White Paper" of a medical cosmetology platform, the proportion of consumers under the age of 20 has reached 11.12%. That is to say, from the perspective of age level, medical beauty consumption is constantly "sinking". Especially in the summer vacation, sufficient surgical recovery period and some low-cost marketing methods have really attracted many minors to step into medical aesthetic plastic surgery institutions. According to the Central Radio Network, recently, the China Consumers Association reminded parents and minor consumers that they should take a rational view of the effect of medical beauty, and should not ignore the risks, let alone blindly seek beauty or blindly imitate the impulse consumption of celebrity Internet celebrities.
In the face of the blue ocean of the minor market, some businesses have launched a variety of targeted marketing methods, using "affordable medical beauty" and "1 yuan experience" to routine consumers. What should young people do if they don't have enough money? Consumer loans keep up. These institutions have partnered with some lending platforms to allow young people to overdraft their future with interest concessions and installment payments. To make matters worse, aesthetic surgery is like an automatic conveyor belt, and it is not easy to step on it.
On social media, various articles or videos labeled as "real experience" and "planting grass and pulling grass" also have extraordinary appeal. Those contrasts between beauty, ugliness, fat and thin, those changes from inferiority to self-confidence, adults are still difficult to hold themselves, what do minors take to resist temptation?
Should we erect a barrier between minors and medical beauty, just like banning tattoos for minors? In fact, aesthetic plastic surgery is much more complicated than tattoos, tattoos are not just needed, but aesthetic plastic surgery may be for the purpose of physical and mental treatment, such as orthodontics, treatment of cleft lips and burns and scalds. It would be a bit crude to oppose them indiscriminately. In this regard, in previous years, some deputies called for a detailed distinction between juvenile medical aesthetic plastic surgery projects at the legal level, allowing therapeutic plastic surgery projects and limiting the demand for non-therapeutic plastic surgery. The feasibility of such proposals could be further discussed in public.
In front of minors, parents are the first protective wall. The Measures for the Administration of Medical Cosmetology Services clearly stipulate that medical cosmetology projects shall not be carried out for persons with incapacity or limited capacity without the consent of guardians. However, it should also be noted that in real operation, this requirement is easy to bypass with various workarounds. For example, some do not need a guardian to be present, the user's oral book can be substituted, and some only need to issue a text or audio certificate. In this way, how to prevent counterfeiting has become a difficult problem. In this regard, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of medical aesthetic institutions, requiring them to formulate more detailed management regulations and verification systems for the right to informed consent.
In the face of more vulnerable minors, it is advisable to pay more attention to law enforcement and supervision. For those medical beauty advertisements that downplay risks and exaggerate publicity, if they violate the advertising law, they should be punished, and the platform should also be unlenting to bloggers who write soft articles with fictional stories.
Of course, no matter how strict the legal requirements are, they may not be able to stop all irrational behavior. If the anxiety about appearance that prevails in society cannot be dispelled, minors will inevitably be affected when they are immersed in it. It turns out that individuals with high appearance anxiety are often associated with lower levels of self-esteem, higher self-exclusion and shame. This psychological "I can't do it" is likely to affect a person's cognition more than the beauty and ugliness of his real appearance. When children try to shape and become beautiful, it may be more important to explore what their real shadows are and what their real needs are.
Ma Qing Source: China Youth Daily