Maybe it's bias from living all-but-on a college campus, but I'm going to go with "a lot." I think there might also be a fair few who get them to fit in better or, better yet, to stand out because they feel lost in the crowd. I am by no means though saying that everyone who gets tattoos gets them for those reasons, maybe not even the majority. It just seems like a study would yield interesting results.

I agree with Subrosa, tattoos can be just as much of a means to try and fit in as a boob job. Just in different circles.

That's sort of what I was thinking. I mean, not that I think that people don't get tattoos because they think it'll make them look cool; of course people get tattoos for that reason. And of course there's a desire to change your appearance at the heart of both tattooing and plastic surgery.

But the difference is in what's fueling that desire. And for a lot of people with low self-esteem/depression/poor body image (and really, all of them are related, so . . .), stuff like plastic surgery (or constant dieting or disordered eating or overexercising) isn't something that is done with the idea that it'll make them better; it's done with the idea that it'll make them just basically acceptable, if that makes sense. It's not about improvement; it's a necessity. You're not even basically "okay" or acceptable as a person until whatever problem you're fixating on is taken care of. I don't think most people get tattoos thinking, "Once I get this tattoo, then I'll be normal, and acceptable, and okay. I'll be pretty enough and people will like me and I'll be worthy of people liking me." But watch one of those reality shows like Extreme Makeover or The Swan and tell me if that's not exactly what the women on those shows are saying when they talk about the surgery they're going to have done. Of course I know that people get tattoos to feel cool and to fit in with their group and all that. But do a lot of people tend to get tattoos so that they'll feel okay about just existing in their body at all?

And again, I'm not saying that that's the thought process of anyone who gets plastic surgery ever. There are tons of people who are psychologically healthy and get plastic surgery for all kinds of reasons, and I wouldn't apply any of the stuff I'm saying to those people. However, those psychologically healthy people getting plastic surgery also aren't the people this study is talking about, clearly; psychologically healthy people don't kill themselves. If you're someone suffering from depression and poor body image and feelings of inadequacy--which is what this study is talking about--then what you're looking to do is just to make yourself adequate, because you don't believe that you are adequate otherwise. And if you're so unhappy with yourself that you don't believe that you're adequate unless you get surgery (or weigh a certain amount/look a certain way/have a certain BMI or body fat ratio/etc.), surgery isn't going to fix that in the slightest. Your problems are still there, and what's causing you to dislike yourself that much is still there, and you're not any happier after the surgery than you were before. Hence the suicide.

As a side note, the chronically eating disordered also have higher suicide rates than the general population; in fact, I've read that the leading cause of death for anoretics who don't recover from anorexia is suicide. I personally see a parallel between that and this study about plastic surgery, but that's just me.

In short, though, that's the difference I see between tattooing and plastic surgery. I don't think that either the fundamental nature or the degree/strength/severity of the motivations to get tattooed versus those to get plastic surgery tend to be the same; for some people I'm sure they could be, but when we're discussing those motivations in terms of less-than-entirely psychologically healthy people, I don't see them as the same, generally speaking.

I quite agree, I think the boob job however is a way to fit into society at large whereas ink is for a more varied and specific subculture(depending on what you get)

Every time the boob job comes up on this site I can't help but get into it.

I agree that it prolly isn't the boob job that causes the suicide but a preexisting condition of low self esteem that led them to the boob job in the first place.

Yes plastic surgery can be good. People with deformities from birth,accident or disease can greatly improve there life with some of these options. But a perfectly healthy person doing such exaggerated things to their body is a definite output of a society with misplaced values

has anyone noticed her lack of pupils?

SUICIDE GIRLS v v v v v

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

I see what you're saying and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with most of your general conclusions, but I can only speak to my own experience. I got my tattoo for a NUMBER of reasons. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't, on some level a desire to be more accepted/attractive and also to feel more comfortable in my own skin. I've also considered (not especially seriously, but still enough to warrant mentioning) at times getting certain elective plastic surgeries to attempt to achieve the same ends. Again, at root, the motivations are the same: i.e. I want to improve my own self-image.

It's also quite possible that suicide might happen sooner for many of these women if they were unable to get the boob jobs. The temporary, superficial boost in self-esteem might postpone it. And if I remember correctly from reading or TV in the 80's, depression related to the loss of a boob or boobs due to a mastectomy was very strongly driven by the perceived sense of being less than a complete woman because of it. If your boobs define (or contribute to) your perception of your self, you're going to have some challenges in life. Then again, self-esteem issues are going to continue to manifest themselves until the underlying psychological problems are addressed. Boobs this month, butt next month, skin the month after that, etc.

I see what both of you are saying but the tattoo has so many variables that it really is more of a self expression whereas the boob job is really only for one thing (caveat as previously stated: disease,ect,ect) if boob job were a self expression rather than a body image issue people would get them on their foreheads or any other millions of variable other than cup size.

Mastectomy are a totally different thing, I think it is understood we are talking only of people that do it for vanity.

I read a similar thing in a clever philosophy primer. Say a study finds a significant correllation between necatrines and nosebleeds. Does that prove nectarines cause nosebleeds? Actually, it turns out to be the opposite. People with a vitamin X deficiency are more prone to nosebleeds and nectarines have a small amount of X. People with vitamin X deficiency tend to seek out nectarines when their X is low and without nectarines, there would actually be more nosebleeds.

One thing I've noticed on SG (and other message boards) is that stories about scientific studies tend to be greeted smugly if it's what the reader wants to hear and derisively if it's not. The smugs say, "See? Told you so!" and the derisives try to question the science of the study. Not to say that everyone here is doing that, there's actually some good discussion going on in this thread.

American Journal of Epidemiology, with the study being performed by the Public Health Agency of Canada in Ottawa

That is like the reports were someone says "99% of serial killers use pornography" or "95% of heroin users say they have used marijuana"
How many porn users never kill anyone and how many pot smokers never use hard drugs?
It is a funny game.
BTW I am right 99% of the time

Okay . . . I'm not going to be able to stay as objective as I'd like to stay if we get into personal experience with what I see this study and its implications as being about, so I'm going to go back and think for awhile and see whether I can articulate what I'm getting at better than I guess I did. I feel like this tattoo-plastic surgery comparison is missing a really fundamental point here, and I need to figure out how to state what I think that is--or hope that someone else can do it in the interim.

. . . Which, of course, means that people from Minneapolis are right 99% of the time.

Ahh, statistics and correlations. They are a fun game, aren't they?