The death of 35-year-old Ozge Seker in October shortly after her weight loss surgery has put the spotlight on risky gastric sleeve surgery in Turkey. Her death, due to complications and infection, has brought to the surface the ugly reality of the many unreported deaths all over the country following this type of surgery. While the promotion of this medical intervention as a shortcut for losing weight has become big business, the public is not sufficiently aware of the risks of such gastric surgeries and seems blinded by the media’s reports of celebrities’ overnight weight loss.

Nationwide debate sparked by Seker’s death led to a swift response from the Ministry of Health. On Oct. 20, it released a statement explaining new criteria for gastric sleeve surgery, aiming to minimize the risk of such medical procedures. But the circumstances of Seker’s death, including that she weighed only 78 kilograms (172 pounds) prior to it, alarmed the public. “Have we all become nuts about our body image?” wrote Ayse Arman, daily Hurriyet columnist and one of the most popular female journalists in the country. She continued, “What is the big deal if she was seven or eight kilos heavier than what she idealized? At least she would be alive today.”

Seker is not an exceptional case of a vulnerable woman disturbed by her body image. Many seem eager to go under the knife, and without doing proper research even end up victims of fraudulent “doctors.” A fake doctor in Adana was recently convicted to six years in prison and fined 4,100 Turkish liras ($1,070) for performing lip augmentation on at least four women.

Obesity is on the rise in Turkey and research — scarce as it is — suggests that the rates of negative body image and eating disturbances are also increasing. A high-pressure environment maintained by the media, peers or family contribute to Turkish women's perception of body ideals. For example, when Ajda Pekkan, a 71-year-old pop star, posted a photo of herself cooking last month, “her physique that put young people to shame” was in the news and on social media for days. Comments ranged from people questioning whether her buttocks are real to others, expressing hopes that God would grant them such a physique at that age.