Stomach a fat chance for new you

Increasingly Americans are using fat from their stomachs to sculpt their faces, breasts and buttocks, new plastic surgery statistics reveal.

In the US, about 17million surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedures were performed last year, said the US Society of Plastic Surgeons' annual report released yesterday.

The statistics show a 3% growth in cosmetic procedures, including facelifts and a new trend to rejuvenate private zones like labias.

Facelifts made a comeback into the top five most popular cosmetic surgical procedures in 2016, the data showed, which were breast augmentation, liposuction, nose reshaping, eyelid surgery and facelifts.

Society president Debra Johnson said: "One trend we are seeing with fat involves an increase in fat grafting procedures. Plastic surgeons harvest a patient's unwanted fat from their abdomen using liposuction and then inject it to lift and rejuvenate other areas such as the face, buttocks and even the breast."

The most popular minimally invasive procedures were botox, soft tissue fillers, chemical peels, laser hair removal and microdermabrasion.

The society began tracking labiaplasty procedures in 2015. These increased by 39% in that year with more than 12,000 procedures.