Vulnerable people worried about their appearance are being exploited by unregulated clinics offering potentially dangerous cosmetic procedures, British lawmakers warned yesterday.
A rise in body image dissatisfaction, driven by social media and unscrupulous advertising, has fueled the growth of an industry that promises to change how people look using lasers, injections of anti-aging fillers, chemical peels and other nonsurgical procedures.
In a report published yesterday, the British House of Commons’ Health and Social Care Select Committee said that shame and depression about appearance is prompting men, woman and children to change their face or body to conform to society’s ideals of beauty.
It demanded an end to the lack of oversight that allows cosmetic practitioners with little training to perform procedures such as injections, despite risks including infection and disfigurement.
“We heard of some distressing experiences — a conveyor belt approach, with procedures carried out with no questions asked, procedures that have gone wrong, [and] the use of filthy premises,” committee chairman Jeremy Hunt, who was previously secretary of state for health and social care.
The committee urged lawmakers to implement a plan to start licensing premises offering cosmetic treatments as an urgent priority by July next year, as part of a raft of changes intended to clean up an industry worth an estimated ￡3.6 billion (US$4.4 billion) in the UK.
“It was clear throughout our inquiry that some groups are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in this growing market that has gone largely unregulated,” Hunt said. “We need a timetable now for a licensing regime with patient safety at its center to reduce those risks.”
People undergoing nonsurgical cosmetic procedures should always have to give a full medical and mental health history to the clinic, and have a cooling-off period after the consultation to consider properly whether such treatment is best for them, the lawmakers said.
As many as 31 percent of teenagers and 35 percent of adults feel ashamed or depressed about their appearance, a 2019 survey by the Mental Health Foundation think tank showed.
“These pressures are directly impacting the health of the population,” the report said of the effects of body image on physical and mental health.
Kim Booker, who has had cosmetic treatments, told the committee’s inquiry that “with my body dysmorphia and having those very strong compulsions to erase or fix certain parts of myself, I got overwhelmed by it.”
Some clinics do not tell people what they can expect from treatment or consider their emotional or psychological needs, she added.
“Literally, you walk into these places and it is like a conveyor belt,” she said. “You have 10 to 15 minutes for a procedure that, from start to finish, should take at least an hour, to really survey the person’s face and understand their reasons for wanting the procedures to be done.”
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