Women receive the majority of cosmetic surgery procedures. The second most important surgical procedure is liposuction (the first is breast augmentation). In 2009, women accounted for 91% of all cosmetic procedures. Since 1997, surgeries have increased by 67% in women. Whether they are queuing at the cinema, at the supermarket or waiting in traffic, sex is sold. A quick glance at a magazine cover or a billboard and the mind is stimulated by an attractive body. An image of perfection raises personal questions about the physique. Our culture has created an image that is fabricated and manipulated by advertisers to equate beauty with their goods and/or services. The general public, being the most obedient flock to Sheppard's advertisements, follows every whim of the ever-changing market. Locked between fields of diet pills and lawns of this week's latest "minimum work, maximum results", exercise equipment. When that doesn't work to sculpt that body into what graces the most recent People cover, many give up and call the doctor. Because it's the easiest way to become a beautiful person, with the assumed tone. This evaluation of beauty is essential to making women feel inadequate. They are left staring at models in lingerie with enhanced figures, manipulated by an airbrush, a computer or surgery. Men are mostly visually attracted. This is well known to advertisers, so they use it to push women to buy the cosmetics brand that endorses the model their husband can't stop drooling over in the magazine rack in the checkout line. There aren't many women I know who leave the house without painting their faces. They buy clothes to accentuate their curvy figure, alongside… middle of paper… surgery. Beauty is only skin deep. This phrase is losing its meaning as more and more women rush to the doctor's office to tone up. There is a sense of superficiality in most cosmetic procedures. A personal choice that arises from the feeling of never being good enough, when in reality the majority are. So when you stand in the room naked with black lines and spots all over your body, staring at before and after photos and reading success stories. Ask yourself if it's all really necessary and if a significant person in your life really wants you to suffer the pain of surgery. It's not the billboards or women wearing makeup that are attracted to you, it's the men around you. Some women I know have had liposuction and taken excess fat and injected it into their breasts. Of course they are still a little curvier, I don't find them any more or less attractive.