Americans splurge on Botox, breast reshaping

29 March, 2008

The United States, as a nation, may be having economic problems such as rising gas prices and crisis in the home-lending sector. However, the amount Americans are spending on cosmetic surgery continues to rise.

Almost 12 million cosmetic surgical procedures were done in 2007, up by 7%, according to a report released by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recently. The figure is more than double the number of cosmetic surgeries done in 2000.

Of the total cosmetic surgical procedures, breast augmentation, liposuction and nose reshaping topped the list – accounting for nearly 1 million of the procedures performed.

Americans spent over $12 billion on cosmetic surgical procedures in 2007, NBC has reported.

NBC quoted Dr Richard A D’Amico, a plastic surgeon as remarking: “Plastic surgery has gone mainstream, with breast augmentation still the most common procedure – almost 350,000 breast augmentation procedures were performed in 2007.”

However, the biggest increase was seen in minimally invasive procedures like Botox injections, which were up 13% from 2006. The use of hyaluronic wrinkle fillers like Restylane and Juvederm was up by 35%.

Dr Bruce Shack, professor and the chairman of the department of plastic surgery at Vanderbilt Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, the United States, was quoted by the news agency Reuters as saying: “Much of the increase comes from younger people. Younger patients are realizing that they can start this maintenance process at a much earlier stage in their life, and so the overall increase for the use of these adds up to a major increase of the fillers.”

Another development in the field of cosmetic surgery is the changing patient profile. While white women still form the majority of those who get plastic surgery done, almost one quarter of the procedures were performed on women of other ethnicities.

The statistics provided by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons also show that “the search for perfection is growing, even though surgery is not always perfect.” Dr Bruce Shack commented: “Many people think that cosmetic plastic surgery is no big deal, like going to the beauty shop to get your hair done, but cosmetic plastic surgery is a real operation and carries with it certain risks.”

However, the risks and costs connected with cosmetic surgical procedures are not deterring the Americans from opting for them in order to look good. 

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