In the new Celine Song romantic drama, MaterialistsLucy (Dakota Johnson) is constantly hunting for a tall man. But not for himself – Lucy is a matchmaker and its clients have the height requirements they refuse. That’s why at the beginning of the movie, Lucy says understands why some men decide to perform a $ 200,000 surgery, which gives them up to 6 inches tall: it increases their value on the date on the scene.
Without too much damage, this operation is raised for the second time in the film – a turn that transforms what it means to be a catch in today’s dating market. However, this height surgery is not just a plot point. This is a real way for some people to deal with body image problems around their height.
As surgeons make people taller
Dr. DROR Paley, founder of Paley Orthopedic & Spine Institute, West Palm Beach, Fla., Yahoo, Yahoo, founder Yahoo said he had done more than 25,000 limbs in a 38 -year career. Many of them are performed to correct body imbalances – for example, if one foot is shorter than the other. However, he said, on average, he performs about 100 surgeries a year in patients who only expect to increase height.
Paley explained that the elongation of the limbs involves gradually pulling out a broken bone (tibia or femur) to grow a new bone. Traditionally, this has been done using external metal frames, but it is now common to use implanted devices with engines or magnets that fall into the bone and are controlled remotely and are slowly controlled within weeks. With each adjustment, the devices extend the bone – no more than 1 millimeter a day – and the body naturally creates a new bone and soft fabric to fill the space.
It takes about five months, said Paley, and physical therapy is needed to recover functionality. Depending on the device used, some people may initially need walking or crutches.
As an orthopedic surgeon, Paley corrects “pain and disability” rather than aesthetics, and was therefore initially concerned that others in their industry were appreciated for the procedure.
“It is very strange for us to treat patients for cosmetic reasons,” Paley said. “It took a long time to find out what plastic surgeons know all the time: that they treat body image problems.”
The price label of such procedures may vary, but starts at about $ 80,000 to extend the tibia only, which can give the patient about 3 inches in height, Paley said. But if the patient wants more height by extending the femur, it actually increases the cost of surgery. With physical therapy and other recovery costs Paley said the price of $ 200,000 quoted Materialists are more or less accurate.
However, for many patients, these costs are more than worthy. Paley recalled one patient, a young man, a fresh from a law school, who could barely look at him in his eyes during his initial appointment. Paley performed the limb extension surgery by adding 3 inches to his tibia. A decade later, Paley stated that the patient had returned to thank him with his hand. He told the doctor that he had found confidence in the operation to continue his career in writing television – something he said he had never done if he had not undergone surgery.
“We want to change how patients feel for themselves,” Paley said of the operation. “It changes their lives.”
How to connect height and dating
Alyson Curtis, a mental health consultant in New York, specializes in body image issues, said Yahoo that she thinks many straight men “suffer in silence” with body image problems, and this height is usually high insecurity in men.
“As a therapist, I fully confirm that ‘pretty privilege’ is real, just as it doesn’t matter who you are,” she said.
After all, Curtis explained that the society we live in is “obviously patriarchal” and “made of men”.
“The definition of their masculinity is still large and powerful, and height means it,” she said, noting that at the same time, many men expect and want women to be “very small”, so women are experiencing body image problems. (In MaterialistsThe client says to Lucy that he does not want any “fat” and the other requires a date with a woman with BMI up to 20.)
“We live in a world that prefers people of a particular type of body, taller height, or anything,” she said. Although Curtis said she always confirms her customers, that she feels bad about how society appreciates us, she noted that these standards are not required to define who we are. “You can be very distressing that you always feel inferior. But is it enough to hate yourself for the rest of your life? Is it enough to do a really intense operation that not everyone has the opportunity to do opportunities?”
Instead, Curtis stated that her work with patients is out of place when you find admission to things you can’t or don’t want to change.
“There are people in this world who want to change you about you who are going to judge you – whether it is a personality attribute or even other features like our skin color,” she shared. “There are so many things about us that people will reject that we just can’t like everyone.”