Dimitrios Takas says that the patients who sit in front of him in his practice in Frankfurt and ask about a buttock enlargement always appear very similar: "The classic patient comes alone or with another friend who is also interested," he said Plastic surgeon.
“Then the patient pulls out the cell phone and shows me photos from social media that you can see that they have been processed and says that is how she wants it.
The idea is very specific. "
The buttock enlargement or gluteal enlargement, as the technical term is, spills more and more to Europe from Latin America and the USA.
“The Brazilian Butt Lift is heavily driven by social media and celebrity press,” summarizes Takas.
The younger generation of under 28-year-olds have an ideal of beauty in a non-real world.
Because a Brazilian butt lift, as shown on social media, cannot be achieved with exercise and nutrition alone - and at the same time one of the most dangerous cosmetic surgeries.
Around 5000 interventions in Germany in 2019
For this reason, when a patient comes to him with the desire for a bigger bottom, Takas always wants to understand first what her motivations are.
“The women then usually say that they felt uncomfortable in their bodies.
They did a lot of sport, watched their diet, but couldn't change their buttocks the way they wanted, ”he says.
The age of these women is between mid-20s and mid-30s. It is a different clientele than for other cosmetic surgeries.
Women are often older there.
According to figures from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), interventions on the buttocks increased by 65.9 percent from 2015 to 2019.
The butt lift was performed around 5,000 times in Germany in 2019, 115,000 times in Brazil and 37,000 times in the USA.
The procedure is the ninth most common cosmetic operation worldwide. Breast augmentation is in first place. More recent data are currently not available. "Anyway, the ISAPS figures are only an orientation and not valid," explains Professor Lukas Prantl, President of the German Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (DGPRÄC) and plastic surgeon in Regensburg. Takas says there are three to five requests a month for a Brazilian butt lift. He finds it interesting that, in his experience, satisfaction is very high after the buttock enlargement. He thinks the reason for this is: “You can't always judge your buttocks one hundred percent. It's different with breast operations, the satisfaction is not that high, but you can see the breast every time you look in the mirror. "
Ideals of beauty change. "In the eighties it was the era of the supermodels, slim but curvy, like Cindy Crawford, in the nineties it was the heroin chic, extremely thin like Kate Moss, the millennials, on the other hand, found well-toned bodies and healthy skin with a light complexion beautiful" says Takas. Today's generation thinks a slim waist and big bottom are good. In addition, visiting the plastic surgeon is no longer a taboo. “From decade to decade, trends can be observed again and again,” reports the media psychologist Sabrina Sobieraj, who wrote her doctoral thesis on ideals of beauty.
The social media, however, accelerated the beauty trends, especially Instagram spreads certain body types, so that users believed that it was a reality and desirable ideals of beauty.
“As a countermovement, however, you can name the body positivity movement, which focuses on the supposedly imperfect body,” says the media psychologist.
"One in 3000 women dies after such an operation"
But just because young women in particular want to look like their role models on Instagram doesn't mean that doctors have to operate them that way.
“As a doctor and plastic surgeon, I have a great responsibility, which is why we definitely reject operations.
Many patients come with unreal ideas, so I have to make it clear what is realistically feasible, ”says Prantl.