1,614-Woman Survey Finds 20% of Cosmetic Procedure Recipients Show Moderate-to-Severe Addiction-Like Patterns Tied to Social Media and Body Esteem

The study adapted substance-use disorder items to measure unsuccessful quit attempts, craving, and continued use despite harm. Among the full sample nearly 9% screened positive; 15% of procedure-experienced women reported active symptoms in the past year. Associations remained after controlling for age and education, yet the design captured only lifetime prevalence and self-reported behavior, precluding temporal ordering. Researchers noted smaller, inconsistent links to feminist attitudes and attachment style that attenuated in multivariate models. The original MedicalXpress coverage omitted that the sample was restricted to Jewish Israeli women, limiting extrapolation to other populations or ethnic groups with different beauty norms and social-media ecologies. It also underplayed the absence of clinician interviews or objective procedure records, both of which could inflate or deflate prevalence estimates.