Saving Face

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“People think when they get plastic surgery, their life is going to change. It doesn’t,” Dr. Andrew Jacono told LifeZette.

People tend to seek cosmetic surgery during times of crisis — something doctors and patients need to understand, he said.

Jacono, a surgeon with the New York Center for Facial Plastic and Laser Surgery, came up with a self-esteem scale he used to survey 60 of his facelift patients, mostly women.

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He wanted to see if the surgery had any real impact on their self-worth. He found it did not.

The patients surveyed said they felt as though they looked about 10 years younger, but their answers did not show any connection between the surgery and their self-esteem.

“It was a renewal. It was a new beginning. I … looked younger. I looked better.”

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Jacono said it’s important not to confuse self-confidence or feeling happy with self-esteem. Self-esteem is far more complex and shaped by a lifetime of experiences and relationships.

“When people have surgery to try to make them feel like they have more value or worth, they were pretty disappointed with the results,” he said.

The bottom line is to get plastic surgery because you want to look younger.

That’s what 72-year-old Adele Bienvenue (not her real name) did.

When she was in her 50s, the social worker and mother of three didn’t like that she looked older than her husband, who had two years on her. Her defining moment, though, came when she walked into a movie theater with her mother-in-law.

“Everybody was looking at her,” she said. “I thought, She looks younger than I do, and she was about 25 years older than me.”

After that, Bienvenue decided it was time to do something about the turkey neck she felt was aging her so quickly.

She timed her facelift with a move to the West Coast and a new job.

“It was a renewal. It was a new beginning,” she told LifeZette. “I felt I looked younger. I looked better.”

That’s exactly the kind of result doctors and their patients should be going for, Jacono said.

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”She was happy because she didn’t want to look older. That’s the right reason to want to do a facelift,” he said.

Jacono’s study is not just a warning for people who are thinking about having plastic surgery. It’s something for surgeons to consider as well.

“Surgeons have to be better at screening patients to make sure they understand what will and won’t change as a result of surgery,” he said. “A patient who is getting surgery for the wrong reasons will not be satisfied and you haven’t done anybody a service.”

Jacono said surgeons should consider why a person wants plastic surgery and what they are going through at the time. Unrealistic expectations won’t make anyone happy.

“When I see patients like that I don’t advise them to have surgery. I tell them it’s not a good time in their life to be doing this kind of procedure because it’s not going to accomplish what they’re looking for,” he said.

Jacono’s study is published by JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery.