Plastic surgeries rise in Argentina amid concerns of social media impacts

By Veronica Dalto

Buenos Aires, Dec 2 (EFE).- The demand for plastic surgeries has skyrocketed in Argentina over the past two years amid concerns over how far social media and the increasing use of Instagram filters have impacted clients’ self-view.

“The number of plastic and reconstructive surgeries has tripled” between November 2019 and November of this year, according to estimates by surgeon Edgardo Bisquert, member of the Argentine Society of Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery (SACPER).

Plastic surgeons agree that the demand for cosmetic procedures is on the rise due to a boom in video-conferencing apps during the coronavirus pandemic, where people started noticing wrinkles, hair loss, and saggy cheekbones.

“People being connected online for so long made them become aware of things that they did not like and that they wanted to correct,” Bisquert tells Efe.

Argentine clients of all ages and genders mainly request facial cosmetic procedures to reshape their noses, cheekbones, eyelids, or jawlines, while some undergo body-transforming surgeries like breast augmentation or liposuction.

The economic crisis that Argentina is currently grappling with is not preventing people from investing in aesthetic procedures, as the high inflation rate that reached 52.1% in October pushes them to spend their savings before they lose more value.

“While traveling was banned, people preferred to undergo surgery,” says Bisquert.

Surgeons in Argentina are worried about the impact of social media and Instagram filters.

SACPER member Paul Nani says clients “come to the consultation with a filtered photo of them,” asking surgeons to make them look like the edited version.