by Jessica Del Curto
Daily Lobo
Student Alyssa Pierce never had a problem with her body.
"I don't care what people think about me," she said. "It doesn't bother me when girls look at me in bad ways."
But when she was 20, she had breast augmentation done. She went from a 34 B to a 34 D.
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Pierce first wanted breast enlargements when she was in high school, because other girls had developed and she hadn't. By the day of her surgery in October, she was comfortable with her body.
She got them because she could, she said.
"I was perfectly fine with my body," she said. "My motto is we only live once, so do what you want to do when you want."
Pierce feels even better about herself now, she said.
"I have to admit I feel way more confident now that I've had it done," she said.
She missed two days of school for the surgery and recovery process. The first day she returned, men she saw on campus every day all semester were commenting on how great she looked, and talked to her like she was a different person.
"I think it's hilarious how obsessed guys are with physical appearance," Pierce said. "I never realized to the extent until that first day back from surgery."
Body on a payment plan
Going under the knife to alter one's appearance is becoming more common.
In 2004, 81,000 Americans underwent cosmetic surgical procedures, according to a study by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
"It's due to our media-driven society," said Carol Wagner-Adams, a psychologist at Counseling and Therapy Services at UNM. "People think, 'Somehow my world will be different if I can just reconstruct who I am,'" she said.
Wagner-Adams said people who undergo cosmetic surgery for reasons other than health sometimes suffer from body dysmorphic disorder, a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Body dysmorphic disorder causes people to see themselves as extremely disfigured.
"There will be no end to how many parts of their body need to be fixed," she said.
She said changes in technology have made it easier for people to reconstruct their appearance.
Wagner-Adams said Pierce isn't the only one with a carefree mentality about plastic surgery.
"People say, 'If it's possible, I should do it,'" she said. "You've got to be rich though."
But not always.
Pierce's breast augmentation cost $6,200, and she is on a payment plan that allows her to pay them off - $200 a month for three years. She is paying for it herself, which makes her feel successful, she said.
"That's an option, if you want to pay $200 a month for breast implants," Wagner-Adams said. "But what about when you want to have a right ear lobe changed? You are going to have an installment for everything you have done to your body," she said. "And what does that have to do with the internalization of who I am, and my confidence or my abilities, or the kind of human being I am? It's all about superficial stuff."
Grass is greener
Dr. William Loutfy, Pierce's plastic surgeon, said he likes to educate women when they come in his office wanting something altered. He said reality television shows like "Extreme Makeover" and "Dr. 90210" don't portray the seriousness of plastic surgery.
"They make this stuff out to look like a haircut, which is 100 percent ludicrous," he said. "It's inappropriate to package this stuff like they do on television. It sets the wrong tone."
Loutfy said about 10 percent to 15 percent of his patients are college-aged, and the No. 1 surgery he performs is breast augmentation.
He said people think the grass is greener on the other side, and when they come in for enlargements and tell him to make their breasts look natural, he reminds them that without surgery, they are natural.
Loutfy started out in dentistry work and became an oral surgeon so he could correct cleft lips and do palate work.
"I didn't start off saying I had my heart set on boobs," he said. "You have to take the high road as a surgeon and draw the line somewhere."
Loufty draws that line when he sees female patients come in with their husbands and boyfriends, and it's obvious the decision to get augmentation is mostly driven by the husbands.
"I will not operate on those people," he said. "Period."
A matter of living
Not every student gets surgery for superficial reasons. Sometimes it's a matter of living.
When Celestina Torres was 23, she had tried every diet, pill and program imaginable. She had been overweight all her life. In 2002, she weighed 420 pounds.
"I had problems with asthma my freshman year at UNM. I was sick constantly," she said. "It affected my GPA, and affected everything else."
That year, she decided to use her Winter Break to undergo gastric bypass surgery. This procedure creates a small stomach pouch at the top of the stomach below the esophagus, restricting the amount of food a patient can eat. The remainder of the stomach is stapled shut and divided from the new pouch, reducing the size of the stomach.
"When I was done with my surgery my stomach was the size of a thumb," she said.
When she returned to school six weeks later, she had lost 50 pounds.
She was on a liquid diet for two months and a liquefied food diet for the next two months. Now she can eat whatever she wants, except for pork, peanuts, celery or sugar of any kind because they are harder for the smaller stomach to digest. Her portion sizes are smaller, and it takes her one or two alcoholic drinks to become intoxicated.
"I'm a cheap date now," she said.
Three years later, she has lost 254 pounds. She said at first she was weirded out because as she lost weight, she could see the bone structure she had never seen before.
"Seeing my collar bone, that was the biggest change for me," she said.
She is happy with her decision to undergo surgery.
"Nothing that I ever did was for cosmetic reasons," she said. "It was all for health reasons and for my future."
Loutfy said people who undergo gastric bypass are usually in need of the surgery.
"By the time they get there, it's really beyond cosmetics at that point," he said. "It's more then just a quality of life and aesthetics issue."
