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NYTimes' Alex Kuczynski on Cosmetic Surgery

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If you hadn't noticed, you're not looking. We live in the era of pervasive cosmetic surgery. Everybody nipped and tucked and botoxed and lipo-sucked to a fare-the-well.

Look around at the "trout pout" lips and "wind tunnel" facelifts, the Kabuki zone of expressionless brows, the gravity-defying fronts and rears and rows of paint-white teeth — and you know it's a full-body job site out there.

Alex Kuczynski started when she was twenty-eight, and didn't stop nipping and pumping for ten years. Couldn't stop. Now she's telling her story, and much of the country's.

Hear about addicted to the next "procedure" — tales of a cosmetic surgery junkie.

Guests:

Alex Kuczynski, columnist for the Styles section of the New York Times. Her new book is "Beauty Junkies: Inside our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery."

Quotes from the Show:

"The way that health insurance and doctors manage their business have partially led to our obsession with cosmetic surgery." Alex Kuczynski

"A lot of doctors offer botox as a prophylactic." Alex Kuczynski

"Doctors weed out the patients they think will come back complaining about the results." Alex Kuczynski

"My problem was a mania for maintaining youth." Alex Kuczynski

"We live in an era of image. Our image is our calling card." Alex Kuczynski

This program aired on October 31, 2006.

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