We refer to the Sunday Times article, 'Botox Babes' on the 22nd Of January 2006.

It saddens us to read about how a significant number of young women are turning to aesthetic treatments in the pursuit of an unattainable and unreal concept of beauty.

The increase in demand for aesthetic treatments by young women and teens is a cause for concern and an indicator that teens are falling victim to the beauty myth.

The extent to which these young women will go to achieve this unattainable goal, is alarming: According to recent media reports, the number of young women suffering from eating disorders in Singapore has increased six fold since 1994, affecting younger women the most. Less than 25% of women describe themselves as beautiful and thousands are turning to cosmetic surgery. Despite being increasingly emancipated, these indicators suggest that young Singaporean women suffer from poor self-image and feel the pressure of having to conform to a certain standard of beauty.

For many years, AWARE, amongst other women's organizations, has raised the issue for greater responsibility in the media which tends to place too much emphasis on the physical. (Of course it is not the media alone that has played a role in instilling a sense of poor self esteem in women, and now in men as well.) The issue still haunts us today, more so than ever. Images of the ideal beauty are all around us in one form or another. These emphasize a narrow definition of how a woman should look and link women's appearances to their worth. It is hardly surprising that these images perpetuate the mindset that society has widely acknowledged. Increasingly men are also the targets of advertisements that profit from one's poor self esteem.

In spite of programmes serving to educate and empower women to resist such images and cope with the pressures of being a young woman in Singapore society, many still make the choice of seeking aesthetic treatments at such a young age. It is to this end that Youth @AWARE has formed a task force to understand better the reasons and pressures behind why young women are relying on these treatments to get a body beautiful.

As we try to assess the impact of media images, we would like to applaud The Singapore Medical Association's decision to form a committee to discuss concerns over the increasing demands for aesthetic treatment. It is definitely a welcome move and a step in the right direction. We hope that in its aesthetic practice guidelines, advertising guidelines are scrutinized and made tighter.

Also, we hope that the professional body or other relevant authorities would also look into the growth of the aesthetic industry in the medical profession. We are concerned at how General Practitioners are guided or governed as they take on this role of aesthetic practices. Is counseling provided, especially to younger women, before aesthetic treatment is provided? We would like to know if there is a basic training period or guidelines on training that a GP would have to adhere to before a physician (a GP) is allowed to perform such aesthetic treatments? As more procedures are already being introduced into the aesthetic industry, we would like to know if these are already part of the medical education curriculum for clinicians.

At the end of the day, the decision lies with us, the young women. We hope more women will take control of the situation and make the empowered choice of resisting such aesthetic treatments. The narrow definition of beauty offered by media images and society's mindset has left most women walking a tightrope. As young women, let's work towards rejecting the beauty myth and reclaiming our body in an empowered way.

Ms Harmin Kaur                                                          

Chairperson                                                   

Youth @ AWARE  

Ms Audrey Verma 

Project Leader

Media Watch Team   

Association of Women For Action & Research (AWARE)