It’s not every day that you hear about teenage girls turning to plastic surgery to make themselves look more youthful, but then again, not many 15-year-olds look like their grandmothers.
The story of Xiaofeng, a young girl from Liaoning, China, who suffered from a rare medical condition that left her looking like a woman in her 60’s, first made news headlines in December of last year. Media outlets throughout Asia wrote about how the first symptoms of the incurable condition known as progeria appeared when Xiaofeng was just one-year-old, and how by the time her teenage years rolled up, she looked like an old woman. Her saggy skin made her the target of cruel kids at school, and the constant abuse made her decide to quit her studies. The sad story melted the hearts of millions, many of which donated money for a surgery that could help the poor girl look her age.