The pendulum has swung, folks. Perky breasts, like hemlines, are going down--reflecting the economic slump. Plastic surgeons are quite confident the problem is economic. Women just can't afford to do what they want to do which is to have glorious, hard, round, mounds of silicone. Well, that's the theory:

But now the society reports a 62 percent overall decrease in cosmetic surgery from 2007 to 2008. Business has plunged in regions with the largest home foreclosures, from Florida to Southern California. Forget about Ohio. Until the financial crisis hit, the theory and practice of cosmetic surgery encountered virtually no impediments from medical or mental health professionals, or media enablers

I don't think it's entirely the economy and I don't think it's that big companies convinced women that they needed huge mammaries that made women buy them to begin with as Maura Moynihan asserts in the above article. I think it's simpler than all that: As time has gone on, women have seen the long term consequences of plastic surgery including boob jobs. Except in rare cases like Demi Moore, plastic surgery makes women (and even worse, men) look weird.

Cases in point Madonna, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Jerry Jones, etc. A person reaches a certain threshold where the risks outweigh the benefits and a person looks not young and fresh but old and stretched. Smooth, maybe, but still old.

The Hollywood insiders might all be lying to themselves, but those on the outside peering in see the plastic surgery crazy and make economic choices based on evidence. What used to be trendy and helpful, is now seen to be a slippery slope to weird town.

Now, I think that as doctors refine their techniques, make them less obvious and invasive and more believable, not to mention less risky for a person's health and less expensive, people will turn back toward plastic surgery. Humans will always be vain as long as mirrors exist. And people will always spend money to feed their vanity. But there's no point to spending money on a product of questionable benefit.

Never fear, plastic surgeons, there will be an upturn in breasts (sales) again.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com