cover image Sculpturing Your Body: Diet, Exercise and Lipo (Fat) Suction

Sculpturing Your Body: Diet, Exercise and Lipo (Fat) Suction

John A. McCurdy. Frederick Fell Publishers, $12.95 (166pp) ISBN 978-0-8119-0716-3

Dangerously capitalizing on consumers' ongoing bodily obsession, plastic surgeon McCurdy (The Complete Guide to Cosmetic Facial Surgery), associated with the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, attempts to persuade frustrated dieters of the merits of liposuction, a relatively new technique in which localized deposits of fat are surgically removed from the body. Based on the assumption that ""the principle reason we try to lose weight is to improve the shape of our bodies,'' McCurdy rejects diet (``Weight loss does not guarantee improvement in body shape'') and exercise (``Exercising certain areas appears to have little or no influence on the thickness of fat in that particular area'') as viable ``resculpturing'' solutions. Contrary to the misleading title, readers are not offered a substantial diet and exercise program to prevent them from regaining what is surgically removed. Accompanying before/after photographs do not indicate attractive changes that would warrant undergoing a surgical procedure, and the glossing over of potential dangers (``All patients lose blood to some extent,'' ``Infection following liposuction surgery is extremely rare,'' ``Injury to important blood vessels or nerves is extremely rare'') renders this a frightening, irresponsible effort. (September)