There are some people who are terrified to have surgery and will often do anything to avoid having any surgical procedure. This could be a simple as a tooth extraction (which does count as a type of surgery, since there is a cutting of flesh, and blood involved) or as complicated as elective heart surgery. Yes there are people who decide to have certain surgical procedures done but these are usually on the advice of a doctor or consultant. 

The whole idea of going to a hospital scares some people that they will even avoid going to a clinic or medical centre, and instead rely on natural remedies and alternative practices. These all have their place in the scheme of things and are very useful for some illnesses and ailments. However there are times when the only solution to a problem is to have surgery and at this point the patient has to try and overcome their fears.

For some people the fear stems from a bad experience in their earlier life, either involving surgery, hospitals or doctors, but for some people it can be a fear of never waking up from an anaesthetic. There are also those people who are so afraid of catching germs that they do not visit hospitals at all. All of these reasons are valid and even irrational fears seem valid to the person facing them. We should not judge people and ridicule them due to their fears and insecurities.

On the other hand there are those people who have no objection to having a surgical procedure done. Among these are those women who prefer to go for an elective caesarean operation instead of having a normal birth. Then there are those people who suffer from Munchhausen’s Syndrome where they enjoy the attention that they receive while they are in the hospital, or the attention of the doctors and nurses in the clinics.

There is another group of people who have no objections to going under the knife, and these are those who decide that they wish to undergo cosmetic surgery. This could be due to the way feel about their appearance because of various reasons, such as being overweight or having a certain feature that they wish to change. These people often feel insecure about themselves and they believe that they will fell better if they change their appearance.

For some people, it could be the ravages of time which are causing them to consider having cosmetic surgery done. In these cases a lot of people will have a full or a partial breast augmentation. This will make them look attractive and younger and this in turn will give them a renewed confidence in them selves. For still others, the problem could be that they have lost a lot of weight and have excess fold of skin which are unsightly. In this case they will want a skin tightening treatments such as a tummy tuck. All of these procedures involve some surgery.

We have always believed that when we are children we can eat whatever we want to and not to have to worry about getting fat. Well this is only true to an extent. A child can eat a lot more of the bad things before putting on weight, but only if these are tempered with an active lifestyle. If you let a child have fast food, sweets and fizzy drinks every day, and they do not run around and burn it off, then you will be faced with an overweight child, as well as one with rotting teeth.

There is a lot of child obesity in the western world and the predictions for the health of the new generation of children are not good ones. Many parents will brush away concerns with the attitude that the children will be fine when they grow older, but by then it is often too late. A child needs to learn healthy eating habits at an early age and be taught to avoid junk food as much as possible.

I have three children and each of them have gone through various stages of changing eating habits. When they were all young, it was a battle to get them to eat as the bottle was an easier option. Then it was because they were developing their tastes and didn’t like everything at some point. As they got older things got easier as they started to appreciate different food types and by the time adolescence caught up, they were conscious of their diet and body shape.

Even now, I have to admit that I am proud to say, they do not have a lot of fast food, sugary drinks and other items on the list of unhealthy foods. I have always made sure that they know what constitutes a healthy meal and about why should eat at the right times. These things together are important so that the child grows up learning to make the healthy choice and knows that eating certain foods at certain times is better than eating them at others.

Breakfast should never be skipped and this is a firm rule in my household. So far I have been lucky that they all have the weights in the normal range and that they are fit and active. I have seen the many teenagers who want to have cosmetic surgery procedures such as liposuction. Any sensible parent would put their foot down and say no, but this is considered to be a personal choice.

I have seen the way that some people will rely on cosmetic surgery to fix small problems on a regular basis. These people will allow themselves to put on weight and then go under the knife to correct the problem. This is why procedures such as liposuction, body contouring and even a tummy tuck are becoming so popular. This is seen as the quick and easy way to look good and hence to feel good about yourself.

Last night I was listening to some music by Shania Twain and her most famous song came on: “Any Man of Mine”. This is one song which is guaranteed to make me feel better, no matter what kind of mood I am in. It is such an uplifting song, both in terms of the music being upbeat, and the words being almost an anthem for the modern woman.

I love the line when she says that even when I’m ugly he still better love me. To me this is the crux of the song. For as we all know there are days when we feel wonderful and believe that we could give Angelina Jolie a run for her money. Then there are the other days when we feel as though we look more like Brad Pitt in “Kalifornia” than his wife! The thing that keeps us going is the thought that somebody loves us, no matter what we look like.

To me the ideal looking woman is Shania Twain. I think that she is perfect right from her glossy hair to her manicured feet. However I know that a lot of the image which we see is carefully cultivated and that even she must have days when she feels ugly. However I do not think that she could ever look ugly, only not as glamorous as we are used to seeing her.

There have always been beautiful women who have been lucky enough to have been born that way, and then there are the rest of us who have to work hard at looking good on a daily basis. For some women, it is enough to just put on a coat of lipstick to look great whereas for some it is a full sixty minute job with the whole contents of the make up bag.

The thing to realise is that no matter how hard we try, we are never going to look as good as the Hollywood celebrities, simply because we do not have the resources available to us that they have. They have unlimited money and influence to hire the best personal chefs, trainers, stylists and make up artists. This is all without mentioning the access to the best doctors in the field of cosmetic surgery and aesthetic medicine to deal with any problems which may arise that cannot be dealt with in a conventional manner.

We only get to see the best side of these people, and they try to ensure that we only get to hear about the positive things in their lives. This is why you will never hear of a celebrity having varicose and spider veins treatment, or stretch marks treatment. These procedures do not fit in with the carefully projected image which we are shown and which many people take to be the true persona of the person. In reality, they are like many normal people who have to try and look good on a bad day.

Here we are again, another birthday and another day to reflect upon my life. I have to admit that I am one of those people who still enjoy celebrating my birthday and last year I even threw myself a party. There are those who say that once the children come along, there is no need to celebrate your own birthday but I disagree. I believe that there is an even greater need to enjoy the day because you spend the whole year doing everything for others that it is nice to have one day when you can be as selfish as you wish to.

On the whole I am content with my lot in life, even happy with a lot of things. Like everybody else, there are things which I am not happy about, but I have a lot to be thankful for and on this day I will be counting my blessings. The first thing that I have to say is that I have a loving partner, beautiful children and a supportive family. These are enough to be thankful for but I have to add that I also enjoy good health and a good standard of living as well as being respected. There are always things which you can find to complain about, but I have realised that you should not moan about things which you cannot change, and never complain about things which you can change but do not.

The only thing that I have decided today is that I am going to start a routine which will enable me to lose weight and tone up before my next birthday. I know that this sounds familiar and I will own up to the fact that I have tried to do this before, but this time I have been given an added incentive. Somebody I love very much told me that even if I did not lose weight for myself, I should do it because there are so many illnesses attached to being over weight and that she did not want to lose me just yet.

So I am determined to lose the excess weight in order to improve my health and appearance and I know that it will not be easy. There are many slimming treatments around but the best way to do it is through sensible eating and exercise. It is really quite simple, you need to use more calories than you consume and the weight will start to fall off as long as you continue.

However these days there are alternative methods to losing weight and a lot of people are turning to anti aging treatment and cosmetic surgery when they find that conventional methods are not enough. Some of these include liposuction, which means having the fat sucked out of you by machines and then there are the other procedures such as skin tightening where excess folds of skin are removed and the body is shaped to look sleeker and firmer.

There is so much pressure on people these days to look good that it is affecting all areas of life. There was a time when it was thought that only those who worked in the modelling or acting field had to resort to cosmetic surgery in order to give nature a helping hand, but these days this is no longer true. While it is necessary to keep your body and mind healthy and active, in this competitive world it is also necessary to fit in with certain body images in order to succeed.

Research has shown that the way a person thinks and feels about themselvesis closely related to the way that he looks. A person who is slim and has classically good features will tend to be more confident and have a brighter outlook on life. it is also a sad fact that such a person is more likely to succeed in various aspects of life than someone who is overweight or is not attractive.

This is where cosmetic surgery, or aesthetic medicine, comes in and can solve the problems faced by many people. One of the most popular procedures for women, and especially for young women, is the breast augmentation, which is used to increase the chest size by various methods including the use of implants. Breast augmentation can give a morale boost for a woman who thinks that her chest is too small and wants a fuller figure in order to feel more womanly. This is down to personal thought and choice and somebody opting for this procedure should not be made to feel that they are making a wrong decision.

As for the men who opt for male breast reduction, they are usually overweight or have recently lost a lot of weight and have excess fat on their chests which they wish to have removed. In either case the purpose of cosmetic surgery is to improve self confidence and make you feel better about your body. There is nothing wrong with getting the help of surgery if you find that other methods have not succeeded, you should not let anyone discourage you.

On the other end of the scale we have breast reduction and it may surprise you to learn that a large number of enquiries come not only from women, but from men interested in male breast reduction. Breast reduction is simply the procedure where fat is removed from the breasts and a new shape is created. This is often requested by women who have always been self conscious or teased about having a large chest size and wish to go down a few sizes.

After all, nobody else has to live your life, in your body, and have to live with the way that you feel everyday when you look at yourself in the mirror, so you need to do whatever it takes to make you feel good and look good in your own mind.

Along with ninety per cent of the women in this country I always seem to express the desire to lose some weight, at least a couple of times each week and a lot more than that when it comes around to the festive season or the wedding season. If you talk to ten women at any given time you will find that eight of them will be on a diet and the other two will say that they are thinking about trying to lose a little weight. It seems that even men are showing more concern about their weight and are being more careful about what they eat. They are even turning to slimming treatments and aesthetic medicine, previously the domain of women.

The reason for this obsession is often said to lie with the pressures that women face to conform to the ideal body image that is so popular within the media, that all women should be no larger than a size 8, when the reality is that the majority of women are a size 12-14. Young girls are being constantly bombarded with images of skinny models and this then seems like the normal body shape that all women should have. Some are lucky enough to have the good sense not to buckle under the pressure and others are lucky enough to have the perfect body shape anyway, but for the majority, it is an uphill struggle trying to maintain a perfect figure.

When a woman has tried to lose weight, and failed for whatever the reason, by the use of controlling her diet and exercising, she then often decides to resort to cosmetic surgery. This could take the form of a variety of procedures including body contouring, liposuction and other slimming treatments. There was a time when a person who had been “under the knife” (another term for cosmetic surgery) did not broadcast it to the world at large and stayed in hiding until everything was back to normal. However, in this day and age, people are proud to be able to say that they have had cosmetic surgery and will own up to almost any procedure.

There are clinics which offer to do procedures like a tummy tuck or skin tightening during your lunch hour and as for simple Botox and mini- facelifts, well they are just like visiting the dentist these days and probably a lot less stressful and painful! The fact remains that the best way to lose weight is through controlling your calories and sensible eating habits combined with an active lifestyle with plenty of exercise. Weight loss needs to be slow and steady in order for the results to be long term, as crash dieting will only lead to problems.

If you find that you do wish to use the aid of anti aging treatment, make sure that you do some research and find a reputable cosmetic surgery clinic with fully trained and qualified personnel and that they offer after care facilities.

I once saw a picture in a magazine of Joan Collins, which showed her looking as well turned out as usual and the story was about the fact that she looked so much younger than her actual years. She did look good and the photos had shown her in a flattering light. However, the one thing which had gone unnoticed was the fact that her hands were prominently displayed in one of the pictures. Not that there is anything wrong with her hands, but the fact remained that they did not match up to the rest of the image which was created around her.

Her hands were wrinkled and the veins were prominent. No matter how much make up and other camouflage techniques are used on the face and body, the hands will always show your age. There is not a lot that you can do hide them and even make up will just cover them up to an extent. So when you are considering lying about your age, remember that your hands will tell the truth. There are some procedures which can be used to make your hands look plumper and less wrinkled but these are only temporary.

When it comes to showing our age, we always try to cover up the evidence. It used to be that you never asked a lady her age, but these days there are men who will also be offended if you ask them how old they are. It seems that we all wish to appear younger than we really are and there are some people who will go to extreme lengths to deny the fact that they are no longer spring chickens.

I have always liked the saying that the face you have in your twenties is the face you have been given, but the face that you have in your forties is the face that you deserve. This just means that if you look after your health and take care of your appearance with a healthy diet and regular exercise, you will look better as you get older. There are many ways of looking younger than we are but the trend these days is to get cosmetic surgery done, if you can afford it, and if you are brave enough. A lot of the processes involved with cosmetic surgery are painful and can take a few days to heal from.

When it comes to your face, the most popular anti-aging treatment as far as cosmetic surgery is concerned, is the breast augmentation. This will make you look immediately younger since the facelift will re-define your features and make your bone structure more prominent. A nose surgery used to something which was the domain of Hollywood celebrities but now it is so common that is discussed at dinner tables and is something which is de rigour among anyone who is in the public eye. Even normal people often go for a little nip and tuck session to look younger.

It seems that we are never content with what we have. I know that this is not a new sentiment and that people have been saying this since time immemorial. I suppose even the early cave people would have complained of having either too much sun or not enough sun. Too much of anything is bad for us and leads to all sorts of problems. Too much food will lead to obesity and then too much fat will lead to many different diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. The same thing happens with too much money, we tend to become selfish and greedy, leading to a breakdown in relations and a lot of heartache.

This is why we are taught that all should always do everything in moderation, even things which are good for us such as exercise and sleep. You would not think that too much exercise could be bad for you, but it can lead to problems if you become obsessed and lose too much body fat. The same goes for getting too much sleep. We are all taught that sleep is good for us as this is when the body does its repairs and recuperation. However, too much sleep will lead to disorientation and headaches, especially if it is not a regular habit of yours to sleep too much.

Even when it comes to our appearance and our self confidence we can have similar problems. If we are too self- assured we will come across as arrogant and set people against us, and if we lack self confidence then we come across as being too shy or even dense. You just cannot win. With our appearance, there is so much that we are not happy with and that we wish to change. There are very few people in the world who are totally happy with the way that they look and to be honest, I have never met a single one, even though I have met a lot of people in my life through my travels and work.

Let us take the simple example of hair. This may be an innocuous subject but it can cause a lot of problems for a lot of people. There are those people who have too much hair and wish that they had lees. This is usually hair on the body and face, but even hair on the head can be a problem if it is too thick to manage or too curly to keep tidy. This is where people will have laser hair removal treatments (on the body and face, not head!).

The opposite side of the coin is those people who suffer from hair loss and this is usually from the head, leading to total or partial baldness. This can be rectified with the cosmetic surgery procedure of having a hair transplant. Both of these conditions can be equally distressing and leave the person feeling upset and helpless.

We all know that it is inevitable that we are growing to grow old, in fact that we are growing older all the time. That is off course if you do not die young, which is quite likely these days due to the unhealthy lifestyle that a lot of people are leading. If we do manage to get to the old age stage, it would be nice if we could live with dignity and enjoy all our faculties. One way to do this is to try and prepare while we are still young.

This is mainly a matter of looking after our health, mind and finances. The finances part is the way that we invest our savings and the spending habits we develop. We need to realise that we could live for many years after we retire and that we need to be able to support ourselves at a comfortable level. Also, we will need to spend a lot more on healthcare and need to budget for emergencies too. For the mind we need to try and keep it alert and active and there are certain foods which do encourage thought processes and help the memory.

As for the body, there are a few things that we can do which will help us to be healthier as we get older. The first thing is that we need to try and keep our weight down as there are a lot of illness associated with being overweight, such as diabetes and heart disease. We need to try and keep ourselves active so that our joints stay supple and we do not have difficulty in moving around. Also, the more active we stay, the more our bodies will function better.

When it comes to our diet, we need to make sure that we eat a variety of foods and that we have something from each of the food groups. There are certain foods which will ensure that our bodies remain healthier and if we cannot manage to eat these foods, and then we should make sure that we take vitamins and supplements to try and ensure that we get all the vital nutrients.

These precautions cannot guarantee that we will not have any problems as we get older, but they will act as an anti aging treatment to some extent. If you keep your weight down and stay active then you will hopefully not need to have varicose and spider veins treatment as you get older.

Even the appearance of our faces can be affected by the way that we live. You will notice that a person who is slim and active looks younger than one who is overweight. You will have less need to resort to cosmetic surgery for a facelift if you try and look after your skin and have a healthy lifestyle. These things all seem like such obvious measures, but the problem is that we do not give them importance until it’s too late.

When I was a student in college, I had to frequently use the public library for research purposes (and off course as a meeting place for friends, but let’s keep that as a separate issue shall we?!). I noticed that there was a whole section of the library which was devoted to romantic novels and there were so many different types of these novels. There were two whole bookcases just filled with Mills and Boon novels.

Within these bookcases there were further divisions among the types of romance. There were the standard novels which were set in the modern world, historical novels set at some point in history, but usually in a century which was not too far distant and where the fashion was for the women to wear corsets and voluminous dresses with lots of buttons and petticoats! Then there were the medical novels which were set in hospitals either in large cities or in some deserted outpost. There were also the ones which tried to combine the old Wild West with the modern idea of romance.

The one thing that you could be sure of was that they would all follow a standard pattern and that the end would be totally predictable, in fact for many of them you could know the whole story just from reading the blurb at the back. I got into the habit of reading these novels and found that some were better written than others and soon learned which authors’ style I liked. Some of them were quite funny and all were very light and easy reading that you could do while having lunch at your desk, or sitting on the bus to and from work.

Another thing that always stuck me was the way that all the heroes and heroines were described in the same way. The women were all tall, slim but voluptuous and with long legs. They all had shining flowing locks of hair and eyes that would change colour depending on their moods. They all had pert noses, full lips and wonderful skin. It is no wonder that the modern woman feels that she needs to have cosmetic surgery in order to live up to the ideal of beauty that she has grown up with, and yes most women will have read a few Mills and Boon books in their life. The heroines in these novels would never have needed to have a tummy tuck or liposuction.

As for the men in these books, they were all fine specimens of manhood, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and glossy thick hair which was always slightly long. The eyes were also piercing and the nose always proud. The lips were full (and without Botox and fillers and the skin was tanned and rippling with muscles, which he maintained without working out. Yeah right! How many men do you know who match up to this description, at least outside of the gym and the movies!