Knife jobs on rise to help boost careers

iStock

BOTOX LOOK: The cosmetic procedure is increasing in New Zealand.

Relevant offers

Middle-aged Kiwis are lining up for plastic surgery to compete with their younger colleagues in the workplace.

Real estate and media professionals are at the head of the queue for nose jobs, facelifts and Botox treatment.

Plastic surgeons report a rise in the number of procedures among people working in areas where appearance might be deemed important. They say their clients are increasingly seeking "office" facelifts to stay young-looking in competitive workplaces.

Association of Plastic Surgeons president, Christchurch's Howard Klein, said there had been a general increase in non-surgical treatments such as Botox and fillers, and an "increasing acceptance of cosmetic procedures in general as a social phenomenon".

"As cosmetic procedures have become more acceptable we have seen an increase in people feeling they need to look their best because of workplace competition.

"There has been an increase, mostly because of non-surgical treatments. I suspect it's influenced by media, internet, reality TV and a perception that cosmetic surgery is not just for the rich and famous."

Klein said non-surgical treatments would become more sophisticated over the next few years, and therefore even more popular. He said New Zealand was up with the play in terms of surgical technology and he believed fat-grafting, where fat was transferred from the body to areas that had lost it through ageing, would be more widely used.

Ministry of Health elective prioritisation clinical adviser Chris McEwan said people undergoing procedures were not necessarily those who could afford it. "Many people are borrowing money to have work done."

But, he said, some saw it as an economic decision because it could help further their careers.

He said a trend identified by US sociologist Laurie Essig, that more than 85 per cent of patients went into debt to get work done, is happening in New Zealand.

The number of practitioners offering treatments had grown by about 25 per cent in the past five years, he said and, although the number of young people having surgery was still small, about 80 a year, under-20s were increasingly asking for rhinoplasty (nose jobs) to change their appearance.

"It is a very obvious and disturbing trend. They see their noses as the most prominent area on the body, and there is increasing sensitivity among young people about the way they look," McEwan said.

The number of procedures is difficult to quantify because day surgery treatments often go unrecorded.

But in the latest figures available for privately-funded procedures, for the 2008-09 year, six men and 68 women had facelifts and browlifts, 151 men and 174 women had nose jobs, four women had work on their chins, known as genioplasty, 320 women had breast implants and 266 had reductions (as did six men) and 18 men and 487 women had liposuction.

Numbers for publicly funded procedures for the same year were 77 facelifts and browlifts, 631 rhinoplasty, 21 genioplasty, 122 breast implants, 172 reductions, and 159 liposuction procedures.

A Ministry of Health spokesman said operations were not publicly funded for someone "whose appearance is not out of the ordinary".

- © Fairfax NZ News