The Centre, P.C. - Plastic Surgery Blog

Understanding Body Type and Cosmetic Surgery - Monday, February 23, 2009

A quick refresher might be in order. Apple body types have wide shoulders and/or larger breasts that make them appear larger on top than on the bottom. Pear body types are the opposite: smaller breasts and wider hips, thighs, and buttocks. Hourglass shapes are women with balanced proportions of breasts and hips. Women with a ruler body shape are essentially flat up and down, with either because they lack large hips and significant breasts or because fat deposits around the waist make their body appear straight up and down. Cosmetic surgery can be used to change a woman from one body type to another. Breast augmentation can sometimes be used to change a pear into an hourglass, for example. Liposuction can be used to help some women with a ruler body shape achieve some curves.

Recently, a more complicated list of body shapes has become popular. This list of body shapes was developed by British fashionistas Trinny & Susannah and appeared in their 2007 book The Body Shape Bible. Essentially, they take each of the four traditional categories and fragment them into more refined categories. The pear is refined into pear, skittle (a Britishism for bowling pin), and bell, distinguished by both length of torso and the relative balance of breasts to hips and waist. Skittle-shaped women are likely to benefit from breast augmentation, while bell-shaped women might benefit more from liposuction to help define the waist or reduce the thighs.

Trinny & Susannah take into account more parts of the body, including thighs and calves. They also slightly redefine traditional categories. While the traditional descriptor "apple" is based on the image of the red delicious, which is narrow at the bottom and wide at the top, Trinny & Susannah use the term to describe a shape more like a Jonathan or McIntosh apple, which is wider in the middle. We may make reference to this expanded list of body types in the future, but we'll make sure we define what we mean when discussing body type.

At The Centre, P.C, we take into account all aspects of your body and appearance when making recommendations about cosmetic surgery. To get recommendations based on your actual body, schedule a cosmetic surgery consultation with us today.