Brazil is the third country in the world with the highest rates of plastic surgery- but in a country as racially diverse as Brazil, it’s hard to know what the beauty standard that is being chased is. 

Brazil’s colonial past by Portuguese sailors in 1500, as well as with the African slave trade from the 16th to 19th century, has made for a diverse mix in Brazil’s population. This leaves you wondering: What is the country’s beauty ideal that women are chasing?

Lívia Borgo, from Espirito Santo, Brazil, has had multiple procedures done, including liposuction, breast implantation and rhinoplasty. She admitted she used to hate the way she looked and decided to get plastic surgery as it’s “every woman’s dream.”

She said: “I think Brazilian bodies have a vast diversity, and the beauty search is deeply rooted in Brazilian culture. Nowadays, getting plastic surgery in Brazil is very normal- so much so that women from all over the world come here to get their surgeries.

“People have this vision of the female Brazilian body and want to consume it like a product.”

But what is this Brazilian body she speaks of?

Years of interethnic crosses between Native Americans, European colonizers, and enslaved Africans resulted in such an ethnic diversity in Brazil. Yet, when people think of the Brazilian female body, many stereotypes and even dubious articles titled “What do Brazilian People look like?” will often associate it with being curvy and physically athletic.

Livia told HERitage that she is not the first in her family to get plastic surgery, and many of her friends have had work done. When people ask her about her surgeries, she says she doesn’t feel like it’s a taboo issue anymore, as it’s “very normal these days.” It is not uncommon to see someone posting on their social media that they have just had plastic surgery- almost like a status symbol.

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In a country with one of the highest inequality wealth gaps in the world, according to the World Population Review, it makes you wonder why Brazilian women are willing to spend so much money on body alterations.

In Brazil, patients are thought of as having the “right to beauty.”  The government subsidizes nearly half a million surgeries yearly in public hospitals so that they can be very low-cost.

But this obsession with beauty has a darker side. In Brazil, women believe beauty is essential for the job market, finding a spouse, and achieving any aspirations of upward mobility.

In the book “The Biopolitics of Beauty,” research on plastic surgery was carried out in public hospitals. Where once burn victims and individuals with deformities were the primary receivers of plastic surgery, now it was found that 95% of patients were there purely for aesthetic reasons.

Plastic surgery can, of course, help people feel more beautiful- but in a country so ethnically diverse, it’s hard to know what beauty is.