'New Year, New Me’ pressure is pushing young people into deadly cosmetic procedures

While many of these ‘New Year, New Me’ impulses can have positive outcomes - encouraging people to cut down on their drink, take up exercise, or be more mindful about their vices - it can also push people down more extreme avenues.

If I have a major concern about focusing one's betterment so intensely around a January reset, it’s that it encourages a quick fix.

These take the form of not just extreme short-term diets or exercise regimens but the adoption of dangerous and ineffective cosmetic treatments, promised as an easy way to achieve a desired look.

Those peddling health misinformation and often unregulated, quick-fix treatments in pursuit of quick money play on the urgency and pressure of the January reset period to pressure people into these operations.

We’ve all heard the horror stories about so-called ‘turkey teeth’, but when the procedures are billed as cheap and quick (and when the alternative is longer-term and not offered at a bargain bin price) these treatments can be hard to resist.

All of this is amplified and facilitated by social media. Fluorescent and glossy pictures of influencers’ alabaster enamels are constantly flooding social media and augmented with the constant drumbeat of being a ‘new you’ in January, it’s no wonder there’s a market for dangerous treatments.

And a lot of these treatments are sold through social media as well, providing a frictionless pipeline between being influenced into it and signing up.

The solution is threefold: First, we need to make sure people can get affordable and timely access to safe and effective specialist dentistry. There are just over a thousand orthodontists in the UK, not nearly enough to meet the enormous demand for specialist treatment. This chronic shortage in the UK is why I started 32Co - to redress the balance.

Secondly, regulators and social media companies need to be more vigilant and proactive about health misinformation and the selling of potentially deadly procedures on their platforms.

Thirdly, we need to reframe the conversation around new years resolutions and the mentality of ‘New Year, New Me’. No worthwhile change or improvement happens at the snap of fingers.

Rather than amplifying voices that encourage quick fixes and instant changes, we should reward those advocating for long term, sustainable and healthy change.

Many of these treatments can be life changing if done well, but they aren’t achieved overnight.

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Dr Sonia Szamocki, founder and CEO of dental healthcare company 32Co

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