The challenge of new beauty treatments is that they’re designed to last a lifetime

The great Western dissatisfaction is divided into three parts: height, slimness and hair. If these are lacking, the more sensitive souls develop complexes. How can this be resolved, in this millennium where the solution precedes the problem? Must we remain dissatisfied? No, a new remedy has recently arrived.

Limb lengthening has been around for about seventy years; it used to be used to treat injuries and deformities. Now it’s for healthy people with low self-esteem: three, five – let’s go over the top – eight centimetres extra. And you’ll no longer be the short one, just slightly shorter. But only by a tiny bit.

It’s sheer torture (no pain, no gain): the femurs or tibias are cut, two pins are inserted, and the ends of the bone are slowly pulled apart. The body then fills the gap by producing new tissue. Meanwhile, the muscles, nerves, tendons, arteries and skin have to stretch. It used to be a horrific operation involving excruciating pain and recovery times that were impossible to manage. The latest innovation is the Precice Max, known as PMax, a magnetic internal nail with reinforced titanium walls. The patient is given a device, places it on their leg four times a day and presses the buttons: one millimetre a day. Surgeon Dror Paley claims that patients can walk unaided again after two or three weeks (he makes it sound easy; in reality, there has already been a recall for some devices due to possible design flaws).

Let’s move on to appetite, another bodily function that was once a sign of good health but is now dismissed as a non-functional instinct. Are you hungry? What are you, a wild animal?

Ozempic has opened the floodgates to a whole host of new drugs, and now all its counterparts are here too, even in tablet form. At first, it was a miracle for the obese and for diabetics. And now for everyone else too – the carefree types who find dieting too much of a struggle because willpower doesn’t grow on trees: just give us this pill, please. Evidently, everyone’s taking it; we’re surrounded by friends who’ve suddenly become model-thin. The numerous side effects aren’t putting anyone off (better poisoned than flabby: that was the sort of body positivity we had, ladies and gentlemen).

The joke, however, lies elsewhere: the treatment is stopped and the body, which is rather reactionary, reverts to its natural weight. The carriage turns back into a pumpkin – a rather squishy one at that. You’re slim, yes, but you need a subscription. How long do you have to take the pills for? Perhaps for life.

What matters? Hair. Hair is everything – these strands on our heads that have the extraordinary ability to govern the lives of the living, making us look beautiful, ugly, nervous or in high spirits.

Minoxidil was originally a medication for high blood pressure and later became a treatment for certain forms of alopecia. It helps follicles that are still functioning to produce thicker hair, but it does not bring back hair that has already fallen out, as in the case of Baron Lamberto. On social media, one observes young, problem-free influencers applying it preventatively all over, even to their eyebrows. They are fighting the threat of becoming less attractive. The dermatologists consulted shake their heads: there are serious side effects and, above all, the treatment only works whilst you keep using it. Afterwards, the hair returns to its inevitable fate: the floor. To remain as strong as Samson, you have to sign up for life – forever.

The bottom line of all this nonsense is that human beings have taken this latest evolutionary leap: willing to torture their bodies and poison themselves with chemical concoctions for a bit of temporary beauty. I wonder, in the end, what we’ll do with these ‘tweaked’ bodies. Our entertainment is ‘inshore’ – we can’t stray from the power socket. They mustn’t touch our remote working, and love is made through writing. Is all this just for the next few years on the sofa?