At what price beauty? How about $16.5 billion — that’s what Americans forked over in 2018 for 17.7 million procedures to alter their appearance. They paid for bigger breasts, more ample bottoms, tauter tummies, sculpted noses and more. They suctioned the plump out of thighs, hips, arms, necks, and chins, and toned up the skin.

To better their looks, patients let themselves be cut upon, injected, and treated with many different medical devices, some implanted. They were frozen, sanded, blasted with lasers, injected with substances (some toxic), and doused with acids. Women (mostly) and men elected this work and paid for it from their own pockets — with zeal and sometimes far too few questions....