Quit Fucking with Your Arms. Your Arms Are Fine.

By Madeleine Davies  |  April 29, 2013 | 8:00pm
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You have skinny arms. You have fat arms. Your arms end in a lizard foot because you also have the body and head of a lizard (in this case, you are a lizard). Your arms are fine. Do they help you lift and move things out of the way? Then they’re better than fine. They’re functional so quit slicing into them and surgically fucking with them already.

Recent statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) show that arm shaping surgeries among women have gone up four thousand percent in the past decade, thanks — they say — to the rise of sleeveless fashions and toned-armed celebrities like First Lady Michelle Obama, Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Biel.

“I think we are always affected by the people that we see consistently, either on the big screen or on TV. We see them and think, ‘yeah, I’d like to look like that’,” says ASPS Public Education Committee Chair David Reath, MD, based in Knoxville, Tenn.

Says ASPS President Gregory Evans, MD, “Women are paying more attention to their arms in general and are becoming more aware of options to treat this area. For some women, the arms have always been a troublesome area and, along with proper diet and exercise, liposuction can help refine them. Others may opt for a brachioplasty when there is a fair amount of loose skin present with minimal elasticity.”

I doubt that Michelle Obama’s tickets to the gun show included any liposuction or excess skin removal because hers seems more like a look achieved from hours and hours of lifting weights and exercising (don’t beat yourself up over it — she has an in-house gym), but that’s besides the point. The point is that women are cutting into perfectly healthy limbs because they’ve somehow become convinced that their arms aren’t good enough. They’re opting for scars that run from shoulder to elbow over having some good old fashioned underarm sag.

“It’s a trade off. [With brachioplasty] we get rid of the skin, but we leave a scar,” says ASPS Public Education Committee Chair David Reath, MD. “So, as long as there’s enough improvement to be made in the shape of the arm to justify the scar, then it’s a great procedure.”

He adds, “We are genetically programmed to have different accumulations of fat in different areas, and for some women the arms can be a problem area.”

See? Even the doctor acknowledges that the areas where our bodies store fat are often genetically predetermined, which in a perfect world would mean that you accepted those areas or at the very least made the best of them without somebody coming in and changing you surgically. Realistically, however, we have insecurities, we have worries, we want the arms of Rachel on Friends because how else are we supposed to snag a whiney, dopey paleontologist if not with the tanned, Smart Water-soaked limbs of a Hollywood movie star?

For what it’s worth, if you’re feeling self-conscious about your biceps or what have you, I want you to know that most other people are only thinking about your arms if you happen to have them in a choke-hold.

Give yourself a break. Enjoy the feel of the wind as it plays with your upper arm fat as if it were a flag unfurling in the breeze. This is your adult body, full of quirks, stories and surprises. #Respect.

New stats: Plastic surgery trend has women armed for spring and summer [Eureka Alert]

Image via Yayu/Shutterstock.

 
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