I had a tense but necessary debate with a group of high school students recently—smart, passionate, and very vocal. The topic? Plastic surgery. The room split quickly. Some argued for self-expression and body autonomy. I listened. But I also challenged them.
I led with this: “If it’s not due to a debilitating physical injury or a medical condition, then we’re often not talking about the body—we’re talking about the mind.”
That’s when it got real.
Too often, cosmetic surgery is marketed as empowerment. But changing your physical form because you’re uncomfortable in your own skin isn’t always power—it’s often pain in disguise. The surgery isn’t wrong. But let’s not skip the conversation about why it’s happening. Is this transformation rooted in trauma? In insecurity? In unmet emotional needs?
We live in a culture where filters are normal, comparison is constant, and self-worth is tied to likes. So before we normalize expensive surgeries as “self-love,” we need to ask: What about mental healing? Self-acceptance? Therapy?
I told my students this: If we rush to change the body without ever addressing the mind, we might look different, but we won’t feel better for long.
Let’s stop treating discomfort as something to erase. Let’s teach our kids how to sit with it, learn from it, and rise with real confidence—not just a new nose or jawline.
