Middle America embracing plastic surgery, other cosmetic procedures

By PAUL WALSH

Last update: March 25, 2008 - 3:08 PM

Middle America is increasingly turning to cosmetic procedures -- surgical and nonsurgical -- but it was nip and tuck between that region and another for where the fewest of these procedures were performed.

That's what the latest numbers show from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

In 2007, there were 1.715 million cosmetic procedures in the region that includes Minnesota. That compares with 1.65 million last year.

The other states in the region are: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

The most common invasive surgical procedure for the region was breast enhancement, with nearly 53,000. The most common nonsurgical procedure was botox, used to minimize wrinkles, totaling more than 628,000.

Only one of the five regions measured had fewer cosmetic procedures: That was the area that stretches from Oklahoma and Texas to Alabama to Tennessee.

At the top? No surprise here: It's the Mountain and Pacific Coast states. That includes image-conscious California.

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