News & Trends
What price beauty? About $1,600 if your regimen includes liposuction, the most popular cosmetic surgery in America. Despite its hefty price tag, plastic surgery's prevalence has been steadily rising as aging baby boomers develop crow's-feet and spare tires.
But some doctors worry that our preoccupation with appearance has sent the number of procedures careening out of control. "There's a growing dependence on plastic surgery to take care of every ill," says Michael McGuire, M.D., chief of plastic surgery at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. "People believe that if their nose is just a little more perfect, it will fix their marriage and get them a promotion."
Unless they live in New England where collagen injections are the procedure du jour. In fact, the type of cosmetic surgery most often sought varies widely by region, with liposuction topping the surgical charts on the West Coast, nose jobs in the mid-Atlantic states.
