Under the knife

This news story is more then a little sad. I was horrified when I saw a promo for Extreme Makeover. Our preoccupation for the perfect nose, lips, body, is going too far.

Reported by the Drudge Report yesterday:

Students in wealthy Chinese city get facelifts for passing exams

MON Jun 16 2003 22:42:21 ET

Hong Kong (dpa) - Parents in the wealthy southern Chinese city of Guangzhou have been rewarding their children with cosmetic surgery when they pass their high school exams, a news report said Tuesday.


Girls are being given nose jobs and work around their eyes while boys have operations to cut out excess fat as a treat for winning places in university at the end of secondary school, according to the South China Morning Post.


The newspaper said cosmetic surgeries reported that 90 per cent of operations carried out last week were on high school graduates who passed university entrance exams last week.


Guangzhou, formerly Canton, is the capital of the wealthy Guangdong province neighbouring Hong Kong and is one of the richest cities in China.


Cosmetic surgery has boomed in popularity in the city in the past decade.

When is enough enough?