Younger women most likely to pursue plastic surgery, point to Internet as top influencer

Data from a recent online study showed among women in the U.S., 87% reported they were unhappy with at least one area of their bodies, and one in five women reported they were currently pursuing or planned to pursue plastic surgery.

These rates represent a more than 200% rise in the trend of seeking help from a cosmetic physician, with an estimated market of more than $75 billion, according to a press release from the RealSelf online community.

RealSelf commissioned the online study, which was conducted online in the form of a quantitative survey and completed by 5,053 women between the ages of 18 and 64 years old from Nov. 24 to Dec. 2, 2014. The study sample included 2,140 individuals considered nationally representative, in addition to subsamples of 1,070 black women, 969 Asian women and 874 Hispanic women. All sample groups were reflective of national distributions for age within their respective race and/or ethnicity, according to the press release.

Survey results showed more than 90% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 years reported unhappiness with at least one body part, compared with 85% of women between the ages of 55 and 64.

Fifty-seven percent of all women surveyed reported they had not sought out the help of retail, spas, dermatologists or plastic surgeons for products or services to change their body appearance. However, 86% of women between the ages of 25 and 34 reported they were willing to pursue help to change a body part, and 40% reported they were likely to pursue surgery for this purpose, according to the release.

Among the factors women counted as primary influences with regard to consumer awareness, survey results demonstrated that the Internet was the primary source of treatment awareness (61%) across all age groups, followed by word-of-mouth (42%).

Women between the ages of 18 and 24 years were found to be more likely to educate themselves about treatments through popular media than women in the older age groups; 41% of young women reported they had learned about treatments from reality TV shows, whereas older women more likely to learn about treatments through news reports and magazine articles, according to the release.

Reference: www.realself.com.