Los Angeles Times
April 15, 2012
More Men Opt for Cosmetic Surgery
SUSAN CARPENTER, Los Angeles Times
When John Tlapa looked in the mirror, his nose looked like he “could pick a door lock,” he said. It resembled “a hook with a point on it. It was pretty ugly.”
So two years ago, the San Diego-based screenwriter underwent rhinoplasty to improve his profile and fix a deviated septum that had plagued him for almost 40 years.
Tlapa, 54, is part of a trend that, in recent years, has seen increasing numbers of men seeking cosmetic surgery. In 2011, 9 percent of surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures in the U.S. were conducted on men, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery — a 121 percent increase since 1997.
While the number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed in the United States increased just 1 percent from 2010 to 2011, the number of males getting liposuction and eyelid surgeries is on the rise. More than 41,000 lipoplasty procedures and almost 23,000 eyelid surgeries were performed on men in 2011, increasing 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Women in recent years have been trending toward minimally invasive cosmetic treatments such as Botox and Restalyne, but the fastest-growing cosmetic procedures for men are surgical. Liposuction tops the list of most common cosmetic surgical procedures performed on men, followed by rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, male breast reduction andface-lifts.
“The taboo is lifting for men,” said Renato Saltz, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Park City, Utah, who is also vice president of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. “In the past few years, plastic surgery is everywhere. All those nip-and-tuck shows have brought plastic surgery to a common ground.”