The healthy recession in cosmetic surgery

If your local real estate agent’s face is hanging low these days, it might be more than sadness. The recession’s latest victim is cosmetic surgery. “Plastic surgeons from the Southland to South Florida said some colleagues are struggling to stay in business,” Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reports in the Los Angeles Times. A breast implant company disclosed a decline in surgeries late last year; a laser eye-surgery firm has lowered its forecast based on a similar trend early this year. A professional breast augmenter frets that in January and February, business for some of his colleagues was off 30 percent to 40 percent.
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A month or two ago, the industry seemed invincible. “For a growing number of Americans, Botox is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity,” the Associated Press declared. Despite the recession, doctors, companies, and financial analysts were projecting double-digit growth, and not just in lips and bust lines. Their confidence was based on several theories. One was that people valued bodily appearance more than jewelry, fancy handbags, and other luxuries. Another was that social pressure to look young would force us to keep shelling out. A third was that cosmetic procedures were “addictive,” largely because patients feared regressing to their previous appearance. “You get used to the way you look,” one analyst observed. “It’s an incredibly effective dynamic.”

Time for a government boob job bailout!