Making The Body Beautiful

Nose reconstructions have been common in India for centuries. South Korea, Brazil, and Israel have become international centers for procedures ranging from eyelid restructuring to buttock lifts and tummy tucks. Argentina has the highest rate of silicone implants in the world. Around the globe, aesthetic surgery has become a cultural and medical fixture. Sander Gilman seeks to explain why by presenting the first systematic world history and cultural theory of aesthetic surgery. Touching on subjects as diverse as getting a "nose job" as a sweet-sixteen birthday present and the removal of male breasts in seventh-century Alexandria, Gilman argues that aesthetic surgery has such universal appeal because it helps people to "pass," to be seen as a member of a group with which they want to or need to identify. Gilman begins by addressing basic questions about the history of aesthetic surgery. What surgical procedures have been performed? Which are considered aesthetic and why? Who are the patients? What is the place of aesthetic surgery in modern culture? He then turns his attention to that focus of countless human anxieties: the nose. Gilman discusses how people have reshaped their noses to repair the ravages of war and disease (principally syphilis), to match prevailing ideas of beauty, and to avoid association with negative images of the "Jew," the "Irish," the "Oriental," or the "Black." He examines how we have used aesthetic surgery on almost every conceivable part of the body to try to pass as younger, stronger, thinner, and more erotic. Gilman also explores some of the extremes of surgery as personal transformation, discussing transgender surgery, adult circumcision and foreskin restoration, the enhancement of dueling scars, and even a performance artist who had herself altered to resemble the Mona Lisa. The book draws on an extraordinary range of sources. Gilman is as comfortable discussing Nietzsche, Yeats, and Darwin as he is grisly medical details, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand's decision to keep her own nose. The book contains dozens of arresting images of people before, during, and after surgery. This is a profound, provocative, and engaging study of how humans have sought to change their lives by transforming their bodies.

The popular medical correspondent challenges women to reinvent their health and wellness routines, and to make midlife their most vibrant years. The world is realizing that a woman’s thirties and forties can be the most beautiful, energetic, and passionate time of her life. Dr. Jennifer Ashton is America’s fastest-rising women’s health expert and medical television personality. Here in her health book for women, she outlines a powerful approach to health care that can help unleash new energy, strength, and sexiness. Integrating the latest scientific research, her five-part plan includes: A simple eating regimen tailored for your changing metabolism. A fitness program to help you work out harder in less time. Stress-reduction techniques and simple strategies for relaxation. An effective, step-by-step sleep plan. Prevention advice for reducing your risk of heart disease, cancer, and other potentially fatal ailments. Authoritative yet written in a friendly, girlfriend-to-girlfriend voice, Your Body Beautiful and its transformative strategies will help you look and feel more vibrant than ever.

In this volume, contributors from a range of perspectives - evolutionary psychology to anthropology, sociology to cognitive and motivational psychology - explore questions of what our attractiveness preferences are and why we find certain others physically attractive, offering a fresh perspective to understanding the perception of attractiveness.

This book explores the role of material culture in the formation of corporeal aesthetics and beauty ideals in different past societies and thus contributes to the cultural relativization of bodily aesthetics and related gender norms. The volume does not explore beauty for the sake of beauty, but extensively explores how it serves to form and keep gender norms in place. The concept of beauty has been a topic of interest for some time, yet it is only in recent times that archaeologists have begun to approach beauty as a culturally contingent and socially constructed phenomenon. Although archaeologists and ancient historians extensively dealt with gender, they dealt less with it in relation to beauty. The contributions in this volume deal with different intersections of gender and corporeal aesthetics by turning to rich archaeological, textual and iconographic data from ancient Sumer, Aegean Bronze Age, ancient Egypt, ancient Athens, Roman provinces, the Viking world and the Qajar Iran. Beauty thus moves away from a curiosity and surface of the body to an analytic concept for a better understanding of past and present societies.

Introducing botox -- Marketing agelessness -- The turf war over botox -- Becoming the botox user -- Negotiating the botoxed self -- Being in the botoxed body -- Conclusion: the perils of an enhanced society

Growing numbers of young men are taking the quest for perfect muscles, skin and hair too far, crossing the line from normal interest to pathological obsession. For the first time, three of the world's leading authorities on men help us to understand and combat the frightening set of compulsive behaviours that make up the Adonis Complex. Combining colourful case studies with scientific research, they reveal a threat that is as serious as the beauty myth for women or anorexia nervosa for girls. The symptoms of this dangerous body obsession, excessive workouts, steroid abuse, eating disorders and body and muscle dysmorphic disorder (distorted body perception), lead to problems with sex and intimacy, relationships and work. In teenagers, the Adonis Complex can interfere with healthy emotional and physical development. Until now, frank discussion of this problem has been virtually taboo. At last we can hear what men really think and feel about their bodies, so that those who suffer in silence will no longer need to suffer alone.

The Body Is Not an Apology The Power of Radical Self-Love Against a global backdrop of war, social upheaval, and personal despair, there is a growing sense of urgency to challenge the systems of oppression that dehumanize bodies and strip us of our shared humanity. Rather than feel helpless in the face of oppression, world-renowned activist, performance poet, and author Sonya Renee Taylor teaches us how to turn to the power of radical self-love in her new book, The Body Is Not an Apology. Radical self-love is the guiding framework that transforms the learned self-hatred of our bodies and the prejudices we have about other people's bodies into a vision of compassion, equity, and justice. In a revolutionary departure from the corporate self-help and body-positivity movement, Taylor forges the inextricable bond between radical self-love and social justice. The first step is recognizing that we have all been indoctrinated into a system of body shame that profits off of our self-hatred. When we ask ourselves, "Who benefits from our collective shame?" we can begin to make the distinction between the messages we are receiving about our bodies or other bodies and the truth. This book moves us beyond our all-too-often hidden lives, where we are easily encouraged to forget that we are whole humans having whole human experiences in our bodies alongside others. Radical self-love encourages us to embark on a personal journey of transformation with thoughtful reflection on the origins of our minds and bodies as a source of strength. In doing this, we not only learn to reject negative messages about ourselves but begin to thwart the very power structures that uphold them. Systems of oppression thrive off of our inability to make peace with bodies and difference. Radical self-love not only dismantles shame and self-loathing in us but has the power to dismantle global systems of injustice-because when we make peace with our bodies, only then do we have the capacity to truly make peace with the bodies of others

An authoritative yet girlfriend-friendly health book for teen and tween girls written by CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton AS an ob-gyn specialing in adolescent care, Dr. Jennifer Ashton understands better than anyone that being a teenage girl these days is fraught with a special kind of angst. But in her practice she talks openly and nonjudgementally to her young patients like a good friend, answering each of their questions respectfully and with candor. Now she shartes this advice in a no-holds-barred guidebook, based on her passion to cut through the embarrassment that girls often feel about their changing bodies and to arm them with the knowledge they need to make smart choices. A comprehensive guide from head to toe, The Body Scoop for Girls covers the basics of puberty and beyond, including: •Breast development and nipple bumps •The decision to wait to have sex, and the benefits of waiting •Birth control •The lowdown on STIs •Eating Disorders •Depression and hormone imbalances •Grooming, from hair removal to hygiene products •Body piercings Writing in a funny and fresh, girl-to-girl voice, Dr. Ashton has created a totally up-to-date health book that speaks directly to young women and the unique pressures they face today. From a doctor who "gets it," The Body Scoop for Girls makes the road to womanhood an empowering one.