--- title: Plastic Surgery: 3 New Trends description: The hottest thing in plastic surgery might be adding fat instead of getting rid of it canonical: https://time.com/3842179/plastic-surgery-trends/ author: Eliza Gray article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-30T21:59:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:19.108Z article:section: Health og:title: These 3 Trends Are Changing the Face of Plastic Surgery og:description: The hottest thing in plastic surgery might be adding fat instead of getting rid of it og:url: https://time.com/3842179/plastic-surgery-trends/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These 3 Trends Are Changing the Face of Plastic Surgery twitter:description: The hottest thing in plastic surgery might be adding fat instead of getting rid of it twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # These 3 Trends Are Changing the Face of Plastic Surgery > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=2b07f6a1-ac4d-4686-be47-37cb44a6beb4&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_ by [Eliza Gray](https://time.com/author/eliza-gray/) ## Eliza Gray Apr 30, 2015 9:59 PM UTC by [Eliza Gray](https://time.com/author/eliza-gray/) ## Eliza Gray Apr 30, 2015 9:59 PM UTC A new drug designed to erase a patient’s double chin is [getting a lot of attention this week](http://time.com/3841556/fda-double-chin-injection/), but plastic surgeons say the biggest trends in the field are actually in other parts of the body. While the focus this week was on Kybella—an injection that destroys fat cells beneath the chin and was just approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday—doctors who spoke to TIME on Thursday said women are focusing on three other goals: bigger butts, smaller labia and a smoother, fattier face. Liposuction and breast augmentation are still the most commonly done procedures, but plastic surgeons said that cultural shifts and breakthroughs in science have recently boosted the popularity of some less well-known procedures. **MORE** [T](http://time.com/3841556/fda-double-chin-injection/)[he FDA Just Approved a Drug to Get Rid of Your Double Chin](http://time.com/3841556/fda-double-chin-injection/) The biggest jump in 2014 was in buttock augmentation, which spiked 86% compared to the previous year, according to statistics compiled by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. The total number of such procedures was 21,446 in 2014, according to an estimated projection based on questionnaires collected from 786 practicing plastic surgeons, otolaryngologists and dermatologists (a fraction of the 342, 094 liposuctions performed.) Dr. Michael Edwards, president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, attributes the trend to high-profile celebrities like Kim Kardashian, who nearly [broke the Internet with her butt](http://time.com/3580809/kim-kardashian-butt-paper-magazine/) last November, but he predicts it will be more of a “blip” than a long-term trend. More surprising perhaps, was the 49% increase last year in labiaplasty, a procedure to reduce the size of or repair the labia minora, the inner labia of female genitalia. The same data from the Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Society put the number of these procedures done in 2014 at 7, 535, a trend Edwards attributed to rising awareness that the procedure is available. Edwards said women can be very self-conscious if their labia are big enough to appear as a bulge when they are wearing a swimsuit, and may also find it more comfortable to do activities such as running if the size is reduced. Some women with pronounced labia can be “devastated” by how bad it is, but when women ask for only a minimal change, he said, “I try to talk them out of it.” For all the hype this week over a treatment designed to destroy fat cells under the chin, in the future, doctors said that the hottest thing in plastic surgery will involve adding fat to certain parts of the body, like the face. As people age, they lose volume in their face and adding back a little fat, either in addition to a face lift or on its own, will be a popular procedure, said Dr. Edwin Williams, president-elect of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Physicians are just starting to learn why the process, called fat grafting or volumetric restoration, works. “I’ve talked about it for a long time,” says Dr. Sydney Coleman, a plastic surgeon in New York City, “but we are now just beginning to scientifically understand it.” What doctors have learned is that adding fat grafts reorganizes the elastic fibers under the skin, making the patient look more youthful. Whatever the procedure, it’s clear that Americans can’t quite get enough of plastic surgery. The number of cosmetic procedures done in America has grown six-fold since 1997, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, from 1.7 million to 10.6 million (a slight dip from 2013), costing Americans $12 billion. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] There's something we all enjoy about staying for dinner. You ever thought why? What was on your dinner table when you were younger? Chances are it had a lot to do with, what your doctor was telling you is healthy. Building a strong healthy body is like building a strong, beautiful building. If the foundation is weak, the whole building will be weak. It takes five fingers to point the way to healthful eating habits. Well, here we go. For years, the government published dietary guidelines. Meant to keep Americans healthy. There's a great deal to learn. Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are. The body needs certain substances to live and grow. And remember, your body isn't just like an automobile. For years, the key measures of those guidelines were the same, cut fat from your diet. The committee's original report urged Americans to reduce their risk of heart attack. By reducing their intake of cholesterol down to the equivalent of about one egg a day. And those guidelines had an effect. From 1977 to 2012, per capita consumption of eggs fell by 9 %, beef by 37 %, whole milk by 72 %. Calories from saturated fat fell, while calories from supposedly safe carbohydrates increased. As one expert put it, it was a vast nutritional experiment. With nearly a million American's a year dropping dead from heart disease in the mid 80s, we had to try something. Nearly four decades later results are in. The experiment was a failure. Americans are sicker than they've ever been before. The prevalence of diabetes has gone up 157 % from 1980 to 2011. Nearly one in ten Americans now has the disease. Causing the public health system $ 245 billion a year. Heart disease is still the number one killer in the country. Americans are as obese as ever. So, what went wrong? Good old granola. Great for taste but loaded with fat. It doesn't take much of imagine a leap to assume that fat would make us fat, clog our arteries and raise the risk of heart disease. It turns out that saturated fat is a lot more complicated than we think. Carbohydrates and fats are nutrients. Like man, you need nutrients to live and grow. [ MUSIC ] Firstly, there are two kinds of cholesterol. LDL which is linked to heart disease and HDL which can be protective. Fats that course through the blood are known as triglycerides and high levels of those are linked to heart disease. Saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol but also raises HDL. Moving LDL buildup on arterial walls. So raising both, makes saturated fat a cardio wash. One key piece of information is that LDL seems to come in two forms. Large and fluffy, small and dense. Those smaller particles are linked to heart disease, while the larger ones are mostly benign. Saturated fat increases the number of large particles. The opposite happens with carbs. I don't get it. Researchers have long since discovered the kind of fats found in olives and in fish like salmon. Are actually heart protective. Now it turns out the fats found in meat and dairy, aren't as bad as we feared before. So that means by focusing so much on fats. We may actually have been making ourselves sicker. So, she brings up the subject of reduced- fat cheese. It's a fat- free [ UNKNOWN ]. Fat- free, cholesterol free. Low- fat granola. Reduced- fat Kettle chips. Reduced- fat Chips Ahoy. Lowfat cottage cheese. Non- fat yogurt is the perfect example. The thinking for consumers was simple. Fat was dangerous. This product had no fat. Therefore, it must be healthy. It's non- fat, which means less calories. [ MUSIC ] But amid the confusion about fat, we end up replacing it in our diets with sugars and carbohydrates, which meant our calorie intake was actually going up. When carbs and things like corn and white bread are ingested into your body, their converted into sugars. Those sugars convert to insulin cuz it's fat cells go into storage overdrive, leading to weight gain. Since fewer calories are then left to fill the body, you begin to feel hungry it means our metabolism begins to slow down in effort to save energy, we eat more and we gain more weight, never quite feeling full. As this process repeats, our cells become more resistant to insulin, which causes us to gain more weight, which increases insulin resistance in a vicious circle. Cut calories, and people just get hungrier. Obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol can all follow. Study after study has found it's very difficult to lose weight on a very low- fat diet. Possibly because fat and meat can produce a sense of satiety, that's hard to achieve with carbs, making it easier to simply stop eating. But it isn't just the increase in carbs that affects us. These processed, low saturated fat alternatives, come loaded with sugars, salt, preservatives, and even some unhealthy fats. So what's the real alternative? As one extra puts it, the cold hard truth about diet is that the only way to eat well, is to eat well. You'll be happier and you'll be healthier, if you focus on real whole foods, whether they have fat or not. Got it. 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