Keeping your chin up isn’t all that easy, especially when you have two of them. Perhaps that’s why after a long battle to get rid of his stubborn double chin, Mazgaon-resident Syed Ahmed decided to go under the knife. “I had tried exercises for the platysma muscle (the facial muscle that extends from the neck to the chest) by chewing sugar-free gum, and even changed my diet, but nothing worked,” said Ahmed, a tall and muscular 23 year-old.
After a year-long regimen of strict dieting and exercise, aspiring actress, Shelly D’Souza, 21, was finally happy with her body. Except for one thing: her double chin. “Exercises targeted specifically for my chin did not work and I felt very discouraged. It did not help that I have a very short neck,” said DSouza, who finally opted for a ‘chin tuck’ (liposuction) to get rid of her double chin.
An increasing number of people, seeking the perfect face and body, are opting for liposuction as an easy way to get rid of excess fat. But that’s not all. While fat around the abdomen, hips and thighs have for long been taken care of by liposuction, patients are now going in for liposuction to get rid of fat in newer areas of the body, such as the calf, knee rolls, the lower back and chin.
In the last year, I have seen a four-fold increase in the number of people concerned about their jaw and neckline. While the majority of them are in the 20-30 age group, aspiring to be models or actors, an equally large number of clients are in the 40-plus age group who have a double chin due to weight gain, ageing, or have lost weight due to dieting or bariatric surgery,” explained Dr Mohan Thomas, cosmetic surgeon, Breach Candy Hospital. The bottomline is that no one wants a ‘turkey neck,’ a colloquial term used to describe double chin. The day care procedure costs around Rs25,000-50,000 and is not risky, hence the high demand for it, explained Dr Thomas.
“A double chin can be attributed to one’s genes, obesity, bad posture and lack of exercise of the neck and upper body,” explained Dr Nitin Mokal, cosmetic surgeon, Sushrusha Hospital, Dadar.
(Names of patients have been changed.)
