Adolescent boys and cosmetic breast surgery

Shocking article by Alex Kuczynski, New York Times, June 14, 2007.

In 2006, according to the [American Society of Plastic Surgeons], nearly 14,000 boys age 13 to 19 underwent surgery to reduce the size of their breasts. That represents 70 percent of all the male patients who had such surgery last year, and an increase of 21 percent over the previous year for that age group...

In a culture that increasingly encourages young boys to be body conscious, demand for chiseled torsos and sculpted pecs is rising, so much so that the number of boys ages 13 to 19 who had breast reduction surgery last year is equal to the total number of all men who had the procedure just two years earlier, in 2004.

The foremost reason is the rise in obesity, according to several plastic surgeons who were interviewed...

Often, enlarged breasts are simply part of adolescence, most commonly caused by the hormonal fluctuation of puberty, according to the National Institutes of Health...
in most adolescents who are not obese, the condition will resolve itself spontaneously as the boy progresses through adolescence and produces more testosterone, said Dr. Brenda Kohn, an associate professor of pediatrics who specializes in pediatric endocrinology at New York University School of Medicine.

As such, she said, “It is very important that one not operate on a child who is still in puberty.”

(emphasis added)