Hollywood’s favorite sector of medicine.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get a little work done to reach your ideal body, provided, of course, that doing so doesn’t place you in any kind of physical or financial hardship. It’s your body, and if there’s an aspect of it you’re not satisfied with, it’s well within your rights to have it altered. Of course, it is a good thing that plastic surgery has come such a long way over the years; in the olden days, you had to put in a lot more blood, sweat and tears to get the look you wanted, even with surgery.

Back in the early 1900s, women would have facial surgery that would end with them looking red as a tomato. For reasons beyond my understanding, this would eventually result in younger facial features. In a less fashion-minded example, skin grafts and facial surgery also had to be performed in hospitals after World War I. It was actually those techniques that would form the bedrock for modern plastic surgery.

The American Association of Plastic Surgeons was formed in the 1920s in an effort to get some standardization going, since amateur plastic surgeons were just sort of doing whatever they wanted beforehand. Plastic surgery became almost like a spectator sport for a little while, with celebrity Martha Petelle getting a public face lift in 1931.

Fast forward to the 40s, and things like body modification became more common in addition to the face stuff. A weird notion went around that having small breasts was a “disability,” so surgeons began implanting things like glass and wood balls into women’s breasts to make them look bigger. It wasn’t until 20 years later that they figured out silicone was the best choice there.

By the 80s, over a million Americans were having some kind of procedure done every year. It was also around this era that things like liposuction and botox were popularized, though the former eventually fell off somewhat. Botox is still pretty popular, which isn’t surprising, considering the prevalence of selfie culture.

The point of all this is that, as I said, if there’s an aspect of your body you’re not happy with, then change it. You have the right (and presumably the money), so don’t let anyone tell you no. Except your doctor, maybe.