There is a new phenomenon today called "Snapchat dysmorphia," which when people want their looks to resemble their digitally-filtered image. Medical professionals say it has a connection with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), and they want to do something to address the issue.
Esho clinics founder and cosmetic doctor Tijion Esho coined the term Snapchat dysmorphia, after noticing too many patients bringing enhanced photos of themselves for surgery. Some patients used their selfies edited with Snapchat or Facetune as a guide for their new look with "large eyes and pixel-perfect skin."
"That's an unrealistic, unattainable thing," Esho said, per the South China Morning Post. A study published in the US medical journal "JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery" revealed that filtered images are "blurring the line of reality and fantasy" and could be triggering BDD. It is a mental health condition where people become obsessed with their looks' "imagined defects."
When evaluating patients to see if they suffer from BDD, Boston University's associate professor of dermatology Dr. Neelam Vashi asks his clients a series of questions about themselves. If they think about their appearance often times and wish they can do it less, if it upsets them or caused problems with work, school or relationship, or there are things they try to avoid because of their appearance, then they likely have the condition.
WBUR reported that evidence suggests the connection of social media, technology, and BDD patients' symptoms and rituals. So to avoid performing surgery on these people, Massachusetts General Hospital's psychologist Hilary Weingarden and colleagues published a practical guide for cosmetic surgeons to recognize if patients' appearance issues are only discontentment or a diagnosis of BDD.
Weingarden admitted there is no data to prove if social media has something to do with the rise of BDD cases. But, she revealed it, along with the prevalent use of technology, becomes "more integrated" into the patients' signs and symptoms. "It's starting to also shape their expectations of what it's 'normal' to look like," she said.
She continued to say that people with BDD should never go for cosmetic treatments as their main problem is not their looks. The disorder needs psychological treatments instead as the issue can never be fixed with cosmetic surgery.
Weingarden suggests BDD patients undergo cognitive-behavioral therapy to solve the problem. This method can help the sufferers to "reality-check" their thoughts about their physical looks and face situations that they try to avoid, and give them "perceptual training."
