The changing requirements of beauty: Concepts, norms and regulations.

This project will consider changing attitudes to body image and the consequent changing uses of procedures which have traditionally been regarded as 'medical'; for instance, according to BAAPS, 43,172 surgical procedures were carried out in 2012, and the most popular are concerned overtly with appearance and beauty (the most popular procedures in the UK are breast augmentation, eyelid surgery and face/neck lifts). Moreover, surveys suggest that if money was not an issue far more women would undergo such procedures, which are seen as increasingly 'normal', 'routine' and part of the 'beauty regimes' of 'ordinary women'. This project will consider the beauty norms which underlie this trend from cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral perspectives. The assumption of the network is that beauty image is becoming ever more demanding and defining of women, and increasingly men, irrespective of their professions. The project will ask whether this is the case, and how this norm is constituted and how it impacts upon women. It will also ask whether the dominant beauty norm is increasingly a global beauty norm, and thus open to less cultural and sub-cultural resistance. The project is especially concerned with role of technology in this. In particular, that procedures which were once regarded as 'exceptional' such as the use of surgery, are now regarded as 'normal' or even 'required' in certain contexts. Other increasingly demanding beauty requirements include hair removal and 'non-invasive' procedures to reduce the appearance of wrinkles. All of these procedures, whether 'routine' or 'exceptional', require time and effort to maintain, and arguably the 'minimum' required is increasing; fewer women go 'bare faced' or bare their flesh without hair removal. This project will explore the extent to which beauty norms are changing and how as well as what this means for individuals, for regulation and for clinical practice. It will explore the 'perfectionist trend' that extends the use of medical and scientific procedures to 'cosmetic procedures'. In light of this it will explore how the use and development of such procedures in the service of such norms changes the concepts of 'health', 'normality' and 'perfection' and in turn how these feed into self-understandings and identity, social expectations, medical practice and regulation.
The project is timely as it connects 'moral panics' about the sexualisation of culture (which is often connected to claims about appearance and clothing) to worries about the number of cosmetic procedures performed on young girls (often to be 'normal') and the rise of eating disorders. All of these signify the increasing importance of appearance, the narrowing of what is considered 'normal', the increasing pressure to comply to such norms and the increasing reliance on, and expectation of, technology (whether surgical or non-invasive procedures) to provide a means to achieve these ideals. This project looks at the changing ideals, how technology is used, and at the practices, policies and regulation of these practices. It asks whether such changes are fundamental (either to understandings of beauty or to understandings of such practices as 'medical') and whether current practices, such as consent or balancing risk, are appropriate to regulate such practices, or whether the changes are social and as such require different frameworks to address them. While there has been significant work on this in popular literature there has been much less genuinely multidisciplinary engagement connecting the underlying concepts and assumptions to the duties of the medical profession, and to regulation and legislation. This network will address this gap in collaboration and partnership with policy makers, particularly with the Nuffield Council of Bioethics (NCoB). The PI and the NCoB will collaborate on gaining policy buy-in to the work which is of such import to the pubic.

The network's particular strength lies in bringing previously separate disciplinary work into close collaboration with key stakeholders interested in the areas of changing attitudes to body image and beauty norms and the consequent changes to uses of beauty procedures. Particular concerns of the network are portrayal of beauty in popular culture and the inadequacy of existing regulations governing beauty procedures. The existing partnership with the Nuffield Council of Bioethics (NoCB) will be strengthened through the network activities, to which the NoCB has signed up to as an official partner. The NoCB will thus act as an enabler and conduit between the academics and relevant stakeholders.

Who will benefit?

Immediate beneficiaries are thus NoCB as the main partner and a broad range of practising clinicians and policy makers from professional medical organisations, regulatory bodies and government departments both in the UK and EU with which the network will directly engage. Indirect and long-term beneficiaries will be the public in general, particularly women and young girls whose daily lives are influenced by changing and dominating ideas of beauty and who are striving to meet these ideals by using a range of different mediums, from normal beauty procedures to medicalised interventions, putting themselves at risk often unknowingly. These beneficiaries will be reached via the social media activities of the network. In addition, the network activities as such include cultural participants, such as artists and journalists alongside medical practitioners and policy makers.

How will they benefit?

The network will have likely impacts on policy debate and making as well as public discourse. There is growing concern from relevant institutions and public bodies on the lack of regulation of beauty procedures, such as The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence concern about Botox treatments, and these stakeholders will be better informed about the key issues that need to be addressed as the network will explore these for the first time in a multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach. The public will be better informed about the underlying risks that come with beauty procedures leading to an enhanced understanding of the major issues that need to be addressed in the area of changing ideas of beauty, from moral and ethical as well as legal perspectives.