Plastic Surgery

However, she is not alone in the entertainment field to go this route. Many celebrities take time off to have various procedures done. Breast augmentation is a surgery many women select. Men may choose liposuction to complete their perfect body look. Many choose to have sculpturing to keep their youthful figure a few more years. As they age, facial surgery becomes an option. Defying age is the biggest concern.

The plastic surgery craze doesn't stop with the music or movie celebrities. Newscasters choose to have the surgery as well. On the news each night, they have their faces broadcast for all to see. In order to move up to better news locations, they often go under the knife to get a better face for the camera to love. Many choose to make the leap fresh out of college to avoid the rush, as they get older. With aging, hated lines and wrinkles appear. The time comes for more procedures to get the best appearance possible. Many have extended their broadcasting careers many years further with a simple face-lift.

Some choose plastic surgery for other reasons. Christina Applegate received news that she had a tumor in one of her breasts. She chose to have a double mastectomy. After the removal, the surgeon gave her implants to replace what she lost. All of this got on the news for all the right reasons. She made a choice for her long-term health. The reconstructive surgery was part of her treatment. In the end, she looked as good as before and could face life without the fear of returning cancer.

Some get on the news for all the wrong reasons however. Heidi Montag is the poster child for this. Some people get addicted to obtaining the perfect body. In addition, they choose to go through plastic surgery to get it. This is where people choose to have numerous procedures done at one time. Some people repeat this cycle many times. They are not happy with their first results and schedule their next round. Then they go in for the third, fourth, etc. This obsession has nothing to do with their looks. It is completely about their self-image. Many would get better results with counseling instead of surgery.

Public Breast Feeding

It's hard to believe that public breast feeding is still considered somewhat of a "taboo". I'd like to think Americans are generally open minded and accepting, especially when it comes to a mother and her child.

The sad fact is that our culture still views breast feeding in public as "indecent" because of the exposure of a woman's breast (gasp). And partial exposure, at that.

Although the vast majority of us have seen this part of the female anatomy, some would have you think of it as "vile" or "inappropriate". A perfect example of American society's reluctance to accept openly breast feeding follows.

Recently a popular, free magazine for new mothers called "Baby Talk" featured a bare breast with a baby nursing (no nipple was visible). The magazine received hundreds of complaints about the picture. Readers felt the breast was "inappropriate" for the cover. The worst part of this whole scandal is that most of the complaints came from women. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak.

I was shocked that, of all people, women would be offended by a demonstration of the nurturing mother and child relationship. Should this not be regarded as a picture of beauty and healthy exposure?

Then I wonder, is it just because we as Americans tend to be uptight about nudity in general? Take the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident, now dubbed "Nipplegate", which resulted in an extreme sanitization of radio and television, having networks running scared to even accidentally show the wrong body part or say the wrong words on air.

Perhaps if breast feeding were looked at on more of an objective level, as it was meant to be, breast feeding publicly would not be such an issue. People are blurring the lines between indecent, sexually oriented exposure and the necessity of exposing one's breasts for the sake of feeding a child.

We as women are encouraged to to give our babies the most nutritionally complete food for their development - natural breast milk, straight from the breast. And yet we find ourselves struggling to find places that make it comfortable and socially acceptable to breast feed.

The most ironic part about this ongoing taboo, to me at least, is the minimal amount of exposure necessary to breast feed. Heck, many women will almost completely cover their breasts with a towel or blanket to make themselves and others more comfortable.

It's aobut time we shake the taboos, and promote tolerance and acceptance for women breast feeding in public.