Cosmetic Surgery TV Shows Get Viewers Pondering

Reality fare spurs interest in nips, tucks, other procedures, study finds.

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter
Thursday, August 9, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

THURSDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Reality TV shows focused on plastic surgery can boost viewers' own interest in these types of procedures, a new study finds.

Shows such as Extreme Makeover and The Swan also make those who watch them frequently feel more knowledgeable about plastic surgery, compared to those who don't watch as much of this reality fare.

"The more they watched the shows, the more interested" they became in plastic surgery, said Dr. John Persing, the senior author and a plastic surgeon at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.

His team published its findings in the July issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

In the study, Persing and his colleagues surveyed 42 cosmetic plastic surgery patients who were seeking plastic surgery for the first time at the Yale Plastic Surgery Clinic. Most of the survey participants were women. The average age was about 36 years.

In all, 57 percent were classified as "high-intensity" viewers who regularly watched at least one of the shows. The rest were "low-intensity," because they watched occasionally or not at all. Only 12 percent, however, said they had never seen one of the shows. Among the plastic surgery-oriented shows included in the study were Extreme Makeover, Dr. 90210, The Swan, I Want a Famous Face, Plastic Surgery: Before and After and Miami Slice.

The survey questions were given in two parts: before the patient had met with the plastic surgeon and right after their consultation.

Patients in the high-intensity viewing group said they felt they were more strongly influenced by the media to seek out plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons, and they said they felt more knowledgeable about the procedures in general.

Frequent viewers also were more likely to believe that reality shows focused on plastic surgery were more similar to real life than the more infrequent viewers believed.

Overall, four out of every five patients said TV had influenced them to seek out cosmetic surgery. Nearly a third said they felt that the shows had "very much" or "moderately" influenced their views on plastic surgery.