Women have long been known to go to great and sometimes horrifying lengths to achieve the beauty ideals of the day. Nowadays those lengths cover the gammut from application of cosmetics and make-up all the way through to plastic surgery. It turns out that this has been going on all through history. Some examples are foot-binding in China, stretched necks amongst Thai and Burmese women, lip stretching in Chad, head elongation in the Congo and head flattening in Mayan culture. These might seem like bizarre extremes to the Western world, but when you consider the implants, injections and procedures women in our society are willilng to undergo, is shows that this obsession with beauty spans the entire globe.
