Even in the uncertainty of 2023—when inflation weighed heavy and families tightened their budgets—plastic surgery in the United States still saw a 5 to 7 percent increase, depending on which reports you trust.
That means, while Americans delayed vacations or skipped dinners out, many still prioritized cosmetic surgery. And these numbers only reflect U.S. data; when you consider the countless people who travel abroad for cheaper procedures, the global increase is likely much greater. The question is: why?
Some argue it’s Zoom culture: staring at our faces on endless calls. Others blame Instagram filters or TikTok beauty standards. And while these may play a role, the deeper truth is harder to ignore. We are a society increasingly convinced that altering our outsides will heal what is restless on the inside.
I stumbled down this rabbit hole myself online. One minute I was reading about mRNA, the next I was watching a woman describe how fat injections in her buttocks were decaying, releasing the smell of rotting meat.
People in the comments accused her of being unhygienic, but the truth was simpler: when too much fat is injected and the body can’t supply enough blood, the tissue dies and begins to rot. And as a farmer, I know that is a smell you don’t ever want to encounter.
From there, I couldn’t stop scrolling. Women stacked surgeries on top of surgeries—breast implants, ab implants, butt lifts, nose jobs—until their bodies hardly looked human. My mind recoiled, not because of beauty standards, but because it no longer registered as natural. What level of disconnection from family, faith, and purpose does it take to risk your health in pursuit of a body unrecognizable to nature itself?
Even when I lived in Los Angeles and was running restaurants, I saw the same thing in person. A customer would sit down with a face so altered by surgery and fillers that it was distracting. I would work hard not to let my expression betray what I was thinking, but it was difficult to listen deeply.
Instead of hearing their story, I was caught analyzing how uneven the work looked, how the face no longer made sense to the human eye, and how much it pulled me away from seeing their soul through their eyes. The human-to-human connection was interrupted.
I’ve also watched girlfriends begin with breast implants or lip fillers in their early twenties, then quickly move on to face injections.
The irony is that these procedures, meant to keep them looking young, often made them look older—faces puffed up and filled before age had even begun to soften their natural beauty. If women in their 20s are chasing this look, what happens by the time they reach their 50s? Do their husbands look back at photographs of them before the surgeries with longing?
The most shocking part is how dangerous some of these procedures really are. Take the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL). For years, it held the title of the deadliest cosmetic procedure, with a mortality rate estimated at 1 in 3,000 surgeries—a risk far greater than abdominoplasty, which is closer to 1 in 10,000 to 13,000.
Even with improved techniques, more recent studies still put the BBL death rate between 1 in 2,351 and 1 in 6,241—numbers that remain alarmingly high. Yet the procedure is booming in popularity, particularly among medical tourists seeking a cheaper price tag overseas. In fact, from 2009 to 2022, at least 93 U.S. citizens died in the Dominican Republic after traveling there for cosmetic surgery, with deaths spiking in recent years.
So the question becomes: Why is one of the riskiest surgeries gaining more popularity than ever?
Along the way, I also discovered something else: breast implants can impact breastfeeding. While most women can still nurse their babies, especially if the implants are placed under the muscle, certain procedures—like those done through the nipple—carry a risk of damaging milk ducts or reducing supply. And while the majority can breastfeed successfully, why risk it at all? Breastmilk is foundational to human health.
This contradiction troubles me. We argue, rightly, that children shouldn’t be pushed into gender surgeries—that God doesn’t make mistakes, and we aren’t born in the wrong body. But if that is true, why don’t we question the culture that pushes women and men alike toward ever-more extreme cosmetic procedures? Why isn’t there the same level of alarm about a society cutting into perfectly healthy bodies out of dissatisfaction with the mirror?
My mother used to say, “Don’t put makeup on the mirror.” Whenever I wanted to change something outside of me to fix how I felt inside, she reminded me the work was internal. Wherever you go, there you are. Surgery won’t change that.
Of course, there are exceptions. Plastic surgery saves lives after accidents, restores dignity after trauma, and, in small doses, can offer people confidence. I don’t deny that. I’ve even had it myself—after my earring was ripped out on a Super Bowl Sunday, I waited too long in the ER, and the initial repair didn’t take. Doctors eventually had to cut into the interior of the earlobe and re-stitch it. That’s plastic surgery too, and I’m grateful for it.
But what troubles me is the cultural obsession with total reinvention, as though we could stitch our way into peace of mind.
Underneath it all, I believe this obsession comes from the same root as so many of our modern crises: our disconnection from nature. When we are cut off from healthy soil, from true food, and from the basic rhythms of God’s design, we lose our grounding. We feel alone, unmoored, and disconnected from who we really are. And in that emptiness, we look for comfort in the mirror, in the surgeon’s office, or in the endless scroll of social media—rather than in creation, community, or the Creator Himself.
Here’s the truth: altering our bodies may give us confidence for a season, but it cannot fix what is emotionally broken. It cannot substitute for faith, family, or purpose. Only we can do that inner work. And only God can give us the lasting acceptance we crave.
Until we remember that, we will keep filling operating rooms—hoping a new face or figure will finally make the mirror smile back.
