KidLife
Too Young for Lipo
Brooke Bates of Austin had liposuction at age 12, but doctors say it's neither safe nor effective for children.
(Inside Edition)
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Liposuction should never be used as a treatment for childhood obesity, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery warned last week, following media accounts of a morbidly obese 12-year-old girl who underwent the fat-sucking procedure. Doctors said they were concerned that obese youths might be tempted to seek liposuction based on the experience of 12-year-old Brooke Bates, whose 35-pound weight loss from liposuction was chronicled in last week's People magazine and has been widely reported elsewhere. The ASAPS, whose members are board-certified plastic surgeons, said there was no evidence the procedure is safe or effective for children.
No Obesity Cure"Eating and exercise habits do not change as a result of the surgery," said Zachary Gerut, assistant clinical professor of plastic surgery at Albert Einstein Medical Center in New York and a member of the society's body-contouring committee. "The majority of people who have liposuction simply go on to gain the weight back. Liposuction is not a treatment for obesity in adults, and certainly not in children."
Last year more than 3,000 people younger than 18 underwent liposuction, a 22 percent increase over 2000, according to reports from members of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. But because liposuction increasingly is performed by doctors who are not plastic surgeons -- virtually anyone with a medical license can do it -- there is no way to tell how many teenagers actually have had it.
Wait and See Many surgeons say the procedure should not be performed until a teenager has stopped growing -- and never for the primary purpose of weight loss regardless of a patient's age. Gerut and other specialists say it is rare to remove more than 10 pounds of fat and fluid during liposuction. The procedure is used primarily to reduce stubborn fat deposits in the abdomen, buttocks or thighs that are impervious to diet and exercise; the best candidates are of normal weight.
"The problem is that everyone wants a quick fix," Gerut said. "This is not it."
-- Sandra G. Boodman
