Last year, I was invited to attend Future Beauty 2022, and if you follow me, you will have read my review.
Make no mistake: the organisers do a commendable job helping sort through a largely unregulated aesthetic industry in Ireland and promoting safe practices and standards of care.
This year, ahead of Future Beauty 2023, I sent a letter to the organisers requesting them to update the show and not to include treatments for a recognised, chronic, complex, recurrent disease in a beauty show.
Weight is not Beauty: This is a hill I will die on.
You can read the text of the letter below.
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Dear Ms. Dwyer, Ms. Dwyer, and Ms. Weir:
I want to reach out to you ahead of the announcement of the speakers for Future Beauty 2023. Beauty treatments are a way to celebrate loving oneself and wanting to look one’s best. I applaud your commitment to promoting qualified practitioners and best practice in an industry that still remains alarmingly unregulated in Ireland.
I’d like you to consider extending your policy of prioritising safe and expert practices to weight management.
As you plan for 2023, I would ask you to consider this year that weight is not beauty and obesity is a disease.
Treatments for obesity – including drugs currently licensed for use only for Type 2 Diabetes in Ireland – should not be included in a beauty show. I did attend Future Beauty 2022 last year for the sole purpose of attending the panel promoting “skinny jabs” after seeing how it was advertised. My take-away was this: there remained an incomplete and/or outdated understanding – even among some healthcare professionals – that obesity is a complex and recurring disease – a medical condition requiring qualified, safe, and comprehensive medical treatment by experts.
Many experts would agree that Weight, “Skinny Jabs”, and Obesity discussions are not relevant to Beauty or a Beauty show. Weight is not Beauty. Weight is not good or bad. All bodies are beautiful. Sculpting body shape may be an aesthetic issue but when a patient’s weight is impacting their health – to the point at which pharmaceutical or surgical treatment is indicated**, it is a medical – not aesthetic – issue; patients who are above a healthy weight deserve comprehensive and qualified medical care to address their health – not their appearance.
If you absolutely must include weight, please consider including a panel discussion on healthy body image, including qualified psychologists with expertise in body dysmorphia. If you absolutely must include weight, please consider inviting the charity BodyWhys to have a free stand. If you absolutely must include weight, please consider including experts or panel on fact-based, evidence-based ways that our health affects beauty. It may be a less profitable, less glamorous, and far less marketable truth that our appearance and health are affected by exercise, diet, restorative sleep, smoking, alcohol, good mental health, hydration. If you absolutely must include weight, invited the recognised experts on nutrition: INDI/CORU registered dietitians. If you absolutely must include weight, please consider inviting recognised and certified physician experts in fields such as obesity medicine, endocrinology, or bariatrics who can advise on safe options.** If you absolutely must include weight, pharmacists can provide expert insights into the approved guidelines, safe use, and side-effects of such drugs. I would be delighted to put you in touch with experts.
Your promotional materials included demographics of attendance from previous shows. Here is a statistic to add to that: ~60% of the population of Ireland is above a healthy weight or has obesity. And absolutely every one of them is beautiful. All of them should be able to celebrate their beauty with tweakments or treatments or topicals – or enjoy your “Girls’ Day Out” package – free from the message that their weight has anything to do with their beauty. Their weight does not impact their beauty. If their weight impacts health, it should be treated by qualified physicians and allied health professionals who have experience in the biopsychosocial as well as medical and pharmacological aspects of weight management.
Thank you very much for your time. I would be only delighted to put in you contact with experts or to provide you with resources outlining current international best practice guidelines on the management of weight and obesity.
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