Cork Views: Teach our children beauty is natural, not made |
Imagine your 11-year-old daughter staring into the mirror, not seeing the freckles you love, but a “flawed” canvas needing filler, Botox, and lasers. “Mum, I’m ugly without it,” she whispers.
This isn’t dystopian fiction, it’s cosmeticorexia, the chilling trend where kids chase endless cosmetic procedures, convinced natural beauty doesn’t exist.
As a psychotherapist, I’ve seen it first-hand: a 14-year-old client, bright and kind, spiralling into secrecy after her first ‘tweakment’. Her confidence shattered, replaced by a skincare-dependent self-image.
This isn’t vanity, it’s a mental health crisis masquerading as self-care.
What is cosmeticorexia, and why it’s not “just aesthetics”
Cosmeticorexia describes the compulsive pursuit of cosmetic procedures (fillers, Botox, skin treatments) driven by body dysmorphic distress, not realistic enhancement.
Emerging from TikTok’s #GlowUp culture and Instagram’s filtered perfection, it’s named like ‘exercise bulimia’, obsessive ‘fixing’ to fill an unmeetable void.
Theoretically, it’s eating disorder’s dangerous cousin. Like anorexia........