Weight Loss with Body Contouring Leads to Better Quality of Life
Body Contouring After Weight Loss
No one argues that losing weight is generally good for most people. Blood pressure, blood sugar, join pain and a myriad of other conditions improve as the fat comes off.
While these changes are great, patients with significant weight find they’ve traded an excess fat problem for an excess skin problem. While this is certainly better than dealing with excess fat, the excess hanging skin can be problematic in terms of appearance, self esteem, sexual confidence and body satisfaction. Excess hanging skin in the arms, thighs, legs and abdomen can be more than cosmetically distressing.
A recent study shows that patients, especially patients with significant weight loss, who then undergo body contouring procedures such as tummy tucks, breast lifts, body lifts and arm lifts show significant improvement in psychological well-being.
In the study, women were asked to grade their quality of life from 0-100 in terms of satisfaction with there bodies, sexual satisfaction, social life , self esteem and other physical symptoms. Those patients were then asked to take the same survey after undergoing body contouring procedures.
The change in scoring for these patients was amazing. The average score prior to surgery was 44 and after surgery the score almost doubled to 86!
Why is this important? The most obvious answer is that patients are less likely to relapse and start to gain back the weight they had lost. Return of the weight will almost certainly lead to return of physical and metabolic issues and the associated personal as well as societal costs.
The American Bariatric Association has gone further and considers body contouring a albeit optional final step in the weight loss process along with maintenance.
At Elysian Plastic Surgery, Dr Dellinger understands that subtle adjustments may be needed for the special needs of patients with significant weight loss. Dr. Dellinger provides body contouring procedures such as tummy tuck, breast implants, breast lifts, arm lifts and other procedures to help men and women who have worked so hard to lose those unwanted pounds.
This article was referenced from Plastic Surgery Practice. The original journal was published in
