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12/17/03 - 14-Year-Old Girl Gets Liposuction - News.com.au

By Mark Dunn
December 17, 2003

UP to 40 Australian teenagers a year, some only 14, are having liposuction.

One 17-year-old has just completed a $20,000 operation "refining the whole figure" after her mother backed the radical surgery.

Dr Darryl Hodgkinson said dozens of Melbourne adolescents have had liposuction and cosmetic surgery at his Sydney clinic for problems including fat bottoms, bellies and thighs. "We get a number from mid to late teens, children from about 14 onwards," he said.

"It's not infrequent in my practice. Especially when you have a transition from Year 11 to 12 or certainly from Year 12 to university - many have chunked up from their study years."

Many of his adolescent patients were genetically disposed to weight problems. Parental consent and a psychological appraisal was required.

Dr Hodgkinson said about 140 doctors in Melbourne and Sydney performed about 400 liposuctions and cosmetic operations a week.

Up to 10 per cent of those were for adolescents. Patients as young as 14 usually required breast reductions, surgery that gave them greater social acceptance among their school peers.

Dr Hodgkinson had just completed a $20,000 job "refining the whole figure" of a 17-year-old girl whose mother fully supported the operation because she herself had suffered weight problems.

Dr Hodgkinson said his Cosmetic Surgery Clinic at Double Bay was recognised as a specialist adolescent service, and up to 20 per cent of his patients were from interstate, including Victoria.

Melbourne cosmetic surgeon Bruce Fox said he told most teens asking for liposuction they should change their lifestyle or wait until they were adults.

But sometimes fat deposits would not diminish through diet or exercise and liposuction on teens was appropriate.

This week he had performed liposuction on 15 and 16-year-old sisters whose mother had liposuction years ago.

The teens had a combination of thigh, buttock and knee fat reductions because the problems could not be fully addressed by diet and exercise, he said.

Other instances included a boy, 12, who had breast reduction to correct a hormonal imbalance. Such surgery could change an adolescent's life from someone subjected to taunts to a teen with greater confidence and social acceptance.

"Liposuction is one option, but I would say it is the last option," he said.

But Dr Mervyn Cass, of Caulfield's Centre of Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery, said there was no place for liposuction on teenagers.

"It's poor medicine . . . almost invariably, the children are also children of people who are also overweight," he said.

Melbourne cosmetic dermatologist Dr Michael Rich also disagreed with adolescent liposuction.

"Liposuction is not suitable for children; it is not a weight-reducing procedure," he said.

"What they need is more exercise. Encourage them to walk. This is an Xbox generation; kids used to ride their bikes."

Dr Rich has conducted liposuction on two adolescents. Both times it was to remove abnormal fat deposits - one on a patient's back and one for a young male's breasts.

Cosmetic surgeries offering liposuction are a growing business in Australia, where 50 per cent of the population is overweight and one in five children is either overweight or obese.

The Australian Medical Association's spokesman on eating behaviour and weight management, Dr Rick Kausman, said he was concerned to learn that minors were having liposuction.

He said 50 per cent of weight problems were related to over-eating and under-exercising, and 50 per cent were related to a genetic predisposition to being overweight.

Dr Kausman said the psychology of food - the reasons why people over-ate - was also important.

"Many people are eating a lot more than their bodies call for," he said. "There is no quick fix here, and liposuction for teens is something that surprises and concerns me."