The booty is the new boobie.
Hip hop, a dominant pop-cultural influence, has made the breast take a backseat to the bottom as the new icon of sexy.
"Butt-seeking behaviour has been with us a long time, but it's now on the increase," says Toronto plastic surgeon Stephen Mulholland, who reports a marked rise in patients wanting butt-enhancing procedures at his Avenue Road clinic, SpaMedica.
"Hip hop is creating a new demand for non-surgical procedures that shape and contour fat or, in some cases when there is a lack of volume, to seek implants."
To keep up with the advance of the rear guard, medical professionals are using new techniques to give the butt the same attention once afforded the face.
These range from injectable chemicals and heated rods you put into the butt to dissolve fat to light frequencies that lift the butt without surgery.
The objective is to give the bum's rush to cellulite - the cottage cheese-like layer of fat that lies below the skin's surface, giving it a dimpled appearance - and make any bum look like a hip-hop hottie's.
"Women are still in pursuit of the fountain of youth," says Vera Madison, a Toronto physician who over the past year has seen a 50-per-cent rise in bum jobs at her Davisville-area clinic.
"But now they want to take the years off their bums as well as their faces. The moment you are over 30, the bum starts sinking down and with the new technologies we are able to lift the bum and give the bum that appearance of a bunny's - round, perky and sag-free."
Her butt-blasting weapon of choice is VelaSmooth, made by Israel-based Syneron Medical Ltd. Like the firm's other product, ReFirme, used to tighten skin on the face, VelaSmooth uses bipolar radio frequencies and light energy - also known as elos technology - to heat the skin's inner layers, tighten collagen fibres and stimulate new collagen production.
Each 40-minute, bum-lifting session costs $232, with patients requiring an average of eight treatments for optimum results.
"It basically heats cellulite, causing fat to melt and, through the lymphatic system, be excreted naturally from the body," Madison explains. "The process is known as lipolysis, and it has reinvented liposuction in that it doesn't require you to go under the knife. There are no incisions at all and no downtime. I think that is why patients love it."
The machine is gaining in popularity across the country because, says Frances Jang, a Vancouver dermatologist with Skinworks, it is the first reliable and medically approved technology for the successful treatment of cellulite.
"It is excellent for people who are not overweight, already exercising and eating a healthy diet. It is not good for women 60-years plus. The skin just doesn't seem to have the ability to bounce back in older patients," Jang says.
More on the cutting edge, so to speak, is Smartlipo, a form of laser-assisted liposuction that emulsifies fat, melting it away from the body and improving the skin's ability to retract and tighten.
Long popular in the United States, the procedure was introduced a month ago to Canada by surgeon Behnaz Yazdanfar at her Toronto Cosmetic Clinic.
To date, she has treated 40 patients with the new technique and says it beats old-school liposuction because it causes less trauma to the body, with a shorter recovery time.
No ifs, ands or buts: Lasers and other non-invasive body treatments have become so popular, they now represent the fastest-growing segment of the cosmetic-procedures industry.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, total fees for body-shaping treatments alone were $4.2-billion (U.S.) worldwide in 2005 and are expected to rise to $7.5-billion in 2010.
"With the non-surgical procedures, it's hard for a doctor to do too much," Mulholland says. "With liposuction, which nonetheless remains the No. 1 fat-fighting procedure in Canada, if you do too much under the butt you can create even more sagging. As I always say, it's better to be J. Lo than way low, which is why I prefer the non-invasive procedures."
While a believer in the VelaSmooth, Mulholland also employs a technique whereby he injects "excessive" butts with a chemical cocktail consisting of deoxycholate or deoxycholate and phosphatidyl choline.
These fat-burners cost clients $500 to $750 a session, depending on the size of the booty. Patients need one treatment every six weeks and on average three to four treatments for optimum results, he says.
"It's the same chemical combo we have naturally in our bodies and what is released whenever we eat a Big Mac and fries to break down the fat in those foods," he says.
"Scientists have now harnessed it to make it work on body contouring. We at SpaMedica have treated 400 patients so far with these chemicals with up to 95 per cent of them seeing results - from a half-inch to three inches in fat reduction."
Still, the notion that cellulite can be cured with a magic bullet (even if travelling at the speed of light) has left some medical professionals skeptical.
"Light-based technologies show some tightening of skin, however most often the results may not be clinically noticeable and in the long run they may not be as cost-effective to the patient and reliable as surgical modalities," cautions Ali Adibfar, a plastic surgeon with clinics in Richmond Hill, Ont., and Toronto.
"Similarly, injectable, fat-burning chemicals ... may be quite painful upon injection, may need multiple procedures, ending up being not as clinically reliable and significant as liposuction, and therefore less cost-effective to the patient."
Madison concedes that patients need to maintain an exercise regime and a healthy diet to allow the new procedures to yield long-lasting results.
"Once you melt fat, it doesn't come back," she says. "But putting fat back into the body will undo everything that the patient has done to get a better body. These machines work, but they can't reverse bad habits."
Backside balm
Can't afford the big bucks it takes to get the best butt? Cheaper alternatives do exist. Here are a few tried-and-true kicks to the back end:
Lotions According to the book All You Need to be Impossibly French, by Helena Frith Powell, French women spend about $96-million a year on slimming creams and gels. One that came out on top, reducing in volunteers two centimetres around their derrières and thighs, was L'Oréal's Perfect Slim ($25.99), available at select drugstores across Canada.
Massage When used with the hand-held, knobby-headed Cellulite Massager, the Body Focus Sculpting Body Mask from the Body Shop dries on the skin to improve circulation and nourish and hydrate. Immediate results include a lessening in the dimpled appearance of cellulite. Long-term results are yet to be determined. In the meantime, the mask's clean-smelling mix of seaweed fossil mud, organically grown soya oil and China clay deliver a rosy, healthy glow ($34 for 350 millilitres). The massager costs an additional $16. Available at all Body Shop locations.
Deirdre Kelly
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Summer shape up
For a firm, high and shapely gluteus to the maximus, good old-fashioned exercise is recommended, say Kirstin Mearns and David Peereboom, owners of aiyoku a cardio lounge in Toronto. They suggest the following: Dumbbell-assisted dead lifts
Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, dumbbells outside of each foot. Keeping legs and back straight with head up, reach forward, grab the dumbbells and straighten up. Then lower weights to the floor. Inhale up, exhale down.
Dumbbell step-ups or squats
Hold a dumbbell in each hand and step up on a bench or perform walking squats.
Butt burners
Get down on all fours. Make sure stomach is pulled in. Extend the right leg and lift as high as you can. While keeping hips square, squeeze glutes at the top of lift.