Minorities Catch Up With Cosmetic Surgery Trend

Wednesday June 21, 2006 in: Global Plastic Surgery Tag(s):

Technorati Tags: global plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery

Once believed to be a luxury that only rich and famous Caucasians can afford to enjoy, cosmetic surgery now attracts an increasing number of minorities wanting to enhance their looks.

According to this MySA.com article, the number of members of ethnic minorities who had their breasts augmented, their faces lifted, their noses sculpted or even their buttocks enhanced has prodigiously increased last year.

In just one year, from 2004 to 2005, the number of minority patients who had cosmetic plastic surgery procedures jumped 65 percent with nearly 2.3 million performed, according to a survey of plastic surgeons and other doctors released in March by the Illinois-based American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

I don't know about you, but a 65% increase is one helluva jump. Here's a breakdown of the number of procedures according to ethnicity:

Hispanics had 921,000 procedures performed in 2005 - a 67 percent increase over the previous year. They made up 9 percent of the 10.2 million procedures performed in 2005. African Americans accounted for 8 percent, with 769,000 procedures - also a 67 percent increase over 2004. Asians saw a 58 percent increase with 437,000 procedures.

Perhaps a major reason for the upsurge is the fact that awareness about the pros and cons of cosmetic surgery is becoming more and more widespread. The popularity of reality plastic surgery TV shows like Extreme Makeover doesn't hurt either. Given these factors, that sort of increase in the number of minorities going under a plastic surgeon's knife isn't really that hard to imagine.

The article also quoted American Society of Plastic Surgeons president Bruce Cunningham as saying that the increase can be attributed to "greater exposure to the benefits of plastic surgery, a growing acceptance of the specialty and increased economic power within these ethnic groups."