Your body is one of the most important parts of you—when neglected, a body in bad shape can cause your self-esteem to drop, and decrease your confidence, which can affect job performance and your interaction with family and relatives. Thus, many turn to body contour surgery in order to improve a stubborn body, removing fat and putting in curves that won’t appear no matter how much exercise and how healthy a diet they manage.

An ideal body contour varies from person to person and depends on personal preferences—some people prefer a rounder, voluptuous body with curves, while others like to have a more square, straight, and thin body. In recent years, as more and more people are undergoing weight loss surgeries to improve stubborn body weights, they then turn to body contour surgeries in order to remove excess fat and improve loose skin. In weight loss surgery (known as bariatric surgery), the surgeon operates on the stomach or intestines, usually making a small stomach pouch in order to make the patient eat less. In 2004, there were about 140,000 people who had a bariatric procedure, and 56,000 of them elected to have a body contour surgery done afterwards. Body contouring is an ideal follow-up to fat removal because it nicely shapes the body and essentially is like a completion of the previous procedure. About 35% of all bariatric surgery patients get body contour surgery afterwards, but the number would certainly be at about 80% if costs were not an issue. In general, the people wanting body contour surgeries after the bariatric surgery were younger, and mostly women. These trends make sense, because younger female patients tend to pay attention to their body image more than older patients.

Typically, a body contour patient who elects to have several different body contour surgeries done can hope to spend anywhere from $25,000 to $60,000. Because different procedures have extremely varying costs, as do different surgeons, it is difficult to estimate exactly the cost of such procedures. In most body contour procedures, swelling goes down in about two or three days, and results will begin to appear in about six to eight weeks. In order for results to fully finalize, and for scars and creases to go away, it takes about a year, or more. Talk to a body contour surgeon to see if body contouring is right for you, because it may improve self image, increase energy, and instill confidence.