The plastic surgery has become a multi-million dollar one, as both men and women employ more and more extreme tools in order to reach the ever more ubiquitous image of perfection that torments us. It sometimes seems as though the tiny people of Hollywood have been constructed entirely out of plastic in a conspiracy to make the rest of us feel like ogres. And in a world where beauty is a highly rated currency, it is little wonder that many of us succumb.

And while plastic surgery is not a bad thing in and of itself, it is still an invasive procedure as dangerous as any other type of surgery, and should not be undertaken lightly. But if the growing number of people who choose surgery every year is anything to go by, then surgery is becoming the quick fix of the masses.

But if anything needs fixing, surely it is a society where people undergo risky surgery in order to feel okay about themselves. We pride ourselves on the advancements we make as a society every moment, and while attractiveness has historically always been of value, is it not now time that we rebel against the status of beauty as the primary currency in our society? But beauty is more powerful that ever, and combined with our enormous technological knowledge, we are at a point when we have the tools to look almost exactly as we wish.

Perhaps the world of 'The Stepford Wives' is really not so very far away. As people make appointments daily for surgery that will make them look like someone else, we are at risk of losing our individuality to a cult that simply wants us all the same. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it seems that as time progresses, we are all beginning to see through one blighted eye. What will we do once we are all finally beautiful? Perhaps then we will begin to look a little deeper. Or perhaps we our notion of beauty will change, as it has done countless time through history, and we will all be left to start from scratch again

Jeff Lakie is the founder of Plastic Surgery Resources a website providing information on cosmetic surgery.