JasperBennett

Americans� burgeoning consumption of cosmetic procedures and anti-aging enhancements such as Botox raises important questions about exactly how and to whom these drugs are being marketed.  Profiting on societal expectations for women�s bodies and faces to remain young and beautiful, Allergan, the pharmaceutical company that owns and manufactures Botox, aggressively markets the drug to the typical American middle-class and middle-age everywoman. This targeted advertising campaign has been extremely successful. Over 90 percent of users are women and almost 60 percent are between the ages of forty and fifty-four . However, small but notable populations of younger women are also turning to this anti-aging �wonder drug.� Botox procedures in the 19-34 demographic have more than doubled in the last decade .   In fact, more women between the ages of 22 and 40 use Botox than do women over 60.  The principal reason for this is that dermatologists, cosmetic surgeons, journalists, an...

In light of research (e.g. Williams et al., 2013) indicating that beauty concerns can be utilised to reduce unhealthy behaviours such as tanning, smoking and more recently, alcohol consumption, a central question remains about the ethics of doing so. In other words, in a society where appearance increasingly defines who you are, and unrealistic beauty standards are a distinct marker of social class (Grogan, 2016), is it responsible of researchers to further emphasize this? Beauty, and particularly youthfulness, has long been the main standard on which women (and increasingly men, albeit not to the same extent) are judged (Wolf, 1991), but perhaps never as intensively as in a time where media images are omnipresent. Walter (2010) goes as far as suggesting the 21 st century to be the era of �new sexism� - related, but not identical to, Glick & Fiske�s (1996) concept of Benevolent Sexism - where traditional aspects of patriarchy such as objectification and sexualisation of women are ...

Beauty standards have always been important in society, but it was not until the widespread introduction of television, magazines and more recently, the internet, that a standardised male and female beauty ideal became a widespread marketing strategy (Dion et al.,1972). Recently, there has been an increasing awareness that personalised beauty is a powerful tool for conveying a message or promoting products. This has been recognised by the advertising industry, a prominent example being Dove�s campaign �See the Beauty in Yourself� (Dove Real Beauty Sketches, 2016) that moves away from a standardised beauty ideal to a personalised campaign strategy where the value of women�s own appearance is used as a marketing tool (Grogan, 2016). It is only relatively recently that the importance of appearance has been recognised by health researchers as a possible tool for behaviour change, particularly with harmful behaviours stemming from a desire to improve appearance, e.g. the use of indoor tanni...