Throughout history, certain members of nearly all cultures have deliberately altered their body's natural appearance. Today, people live in a time when medicine can cure the body and also reshape it. Hence, many people use biomedical means, such as steroids and hormones to alter their bodies. Additionally, cosmetic surgery is becoming increasingly available and affordable to people of all ages, including teenagers. In this article, the authors explore the growing popularity of cosmetic surgery. Their work is inspired and informed by many of the articles contained in the March 2003 issue of "Art Education," which encourage art educators to address visual culture (Villeneuve, 2003). Specifically, they adopt an instructional approach to their subject as advocated by Karen Keifer-Boyd, who recommends they begin with what is meaningful in their lives today and then look for representations of those issues in visual culture (Keifer-Boyd, Amburgy, and Knight, 2003, p. 48). They draw examples from reality television, advertising, dolls, and films made for children. Next, they examine the work of Orlan, a performance artist who repeatedly underwent cosmetic surgery in a quest to challenge dominant standards of beauty. By discussing examples from both popular culture and fine arts, they hope to achieve the goals of art education as posited by Arthur Efland (2004) who writes that art education should provide "the freedom to explore multiple forms of visual culture to enable students to understand social and cultural influences affecting their lives." (Contains 1 endnote.)