Today in OUCH!!!! news, plastic surgeons say there’s been a spike in requests for a two-year-old procedure known as “rib remodeling.” Unfortunately, we’re not talking about getting creative with your plating of BBQ pork ribs. The ribs being “remodeled” are our own, the lowest ones, and in this case, remodeled is a very sanitized euphemism for surgically breaking the ribs to make waists look smaller by a few inches. Payment for this procedure costs you $10-15,000 and three months of difficult recovery which requires wearing a corset to ensure the broken ribs heal in the desired smaller frame. And all this is considered a vast improvement on remodeling’s predecessor, rib removal. I’m assuming the doctors who perform this bone-smashing, risky surgery all took the Hypocritic Oath.
“It started where people were removing ribs, and we no longer do that anymore,” says Dr. Oren Tessler, an Arizona plastic and reconstructive microsurgeon who founded Defyne Plastic Surgery. “But in reality, once you lose weight and let’s say you get to your optimal physical fitness, the bottleneck — the limitation in terms of your waist and how narrow it can be compared to your hips — is the lower ribs.”
In the past, the main cosmetic procedure for waist-slimming was liposuction, says Dr. Josef Hadeed, a double board-certified plastic surgeon. Liposuction, however, has limits. People’s waists carry varying amounts of fat. Plus, at the end of the day, the skeleton largely determines the shape of the torso.
In addition to liposuction, people previously slimmed their waists by removing ribs, starting with the lowest two. But this caused serious health problems. After all, the ribs are “the structural foundation of the torso,” Hadeed says. “If you remove the foundation of the house, it kind of crumbles and collapses.”
In rib remodeling, you don’t remove any bones. Instead, you surgically alter the ribs — essentially breaking them, on purpose — so they heal in a different shape. Hadeed says the procedure is generally safe when done by a surgeon specifically trained in this procedure, though there is some risk of lung injury.
Recovery typically lasts three months and involves wearing a corset regularly so ribs heal in the desired position. Neglecting to do this can ruin the results.
The recovery isn’t easy, and the procedure’s expensive. Rib remodeling typically costs between $10,000-$15,000. Tessler says it lets people take an additional two-to-five inches off their waist.
Tessler says those who seek out rib remodeling tend to already be thin, but want a waist that’s even smaller. Some have more naturally “boxy” builds, he says, and want curves. Some are transgender and seeking to feminize their torsos.
…GLP-1s, Tessler adds, have allowed a new segment of the population to consider elective procedures they couldn’t previously.
“It’s unlocking a huge portion of the population that never even really had the time or the effort to even think about these things,” Tesla says. “It’s like, you go to the gym, you have basic goals, and then, once you hit the goals, you want to do a little more. … The GLPs are unlocking a lot of things, and it’s giving people the opportunity to even have wants that they wouldn’t have had before.”
The argument that GLP-1 drugs are allowing people — who “never even really had the time or the effort to even think about these things,” love that description — to finally start thinking about BREAKING THEIR RIBS is just wild, y’all. Where’s that in the Ozempic ads?! “Lower your A1C for good health… and the chance to surgically alter your ribs!” The only part of this article that made the slightest bit of sense to me was the detail about transgender women wanting the surgery for a more feminine figure. Aside from that, I’m thinking of the centuries of our foremothers who suffered in corsets because society dictated they dress that way. And now some of us are breaking our bones from the inside to achieve the look?? As with all plastic surgery discussions, there’s the tug-of-war between doing what makes you happy vs. being happy with who (and how) you are naturally. I’m a fan of the latter, but as long as there’s a Bravoverse (and beyond) of women with too much money and mirrors, I’m bracing for an episode of The Real Housewives of Americatown where the conversation goes, “I’m remodeling next week.” “Congratulations! House or ribs?”