Radical weight-loss ideas aren’t just for women

When Lynda Seefeldt caught a recent Diamondbacks game on the radio, the most provocative thing she heard had nothing to do with balls or strikes or ninth-inning rallies.

It had to do with weight loss.

Specifically, the Arizona State University health educator was astounded by a radio ad for Valley surgeon Terry Simpson and his popular Lap-Band procedure. Chatting with silky-smooth KTAR (620 AM) sports pundit Doug Franz, Simpson touted the superiority of the stomach-constricting device over diets and fitness schemes.

Driving home his point to his mostly-male audience, Simpson finished the commercial by stressing that losing weight through diet and exercise is harder than “kicking heroin.”

Harder to beat than heroin addiction? Really?

“I kind of did a double-take,” Seefeldt recalls. “Losing weight can be very problematic, especially for someone with an eating disorder. But I’d never heard the heroin comparison before.”

Misleading or not, Simpson’s Lap-Band commercial illustrates a dramatic cultural trend: Male cosmetic surgery and weight-loss services are booming, and men are being targeted more aggressively than ever.

Certainly, the Lap-Band — a high-tech implant that reduces stomach capacity without actually reducing the stomach, a la gastric bypass — is not the only shrewdly marketed elective medical procedure aimed at appearance-sensitive men. Under the pseudonym “Angry Hair Guy,” Scottsdale-based entrepreneur William Gaunitz has had great success offering his laser-based hair regrowth system to follicle-challenged clients. As his name suggests, the Angry Hair Guy recruits customers by appealing to their collective sense of indignation: A thick head of hair is no longer a genetic crapshoot — it’s an inalienable male right.

Likewise, plastic surgeons now advertise male-oriented procedures such as body-hair removal proudly in magazines and newspapers, and the results are uncanny. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there was a hefty 44 percent increase in minimally invasive cosmetic procedures among men between 2000 and 2005. Men’s liposuction went up 10 percent between 2004 and 2005 alone.

For Simpson, the increase has been even more dramatic.

“We’ve seen a doubling of men getting the Lap-Band in the last few years,” he says.

“Men used to account for 10 to 20 percent of my business. Now it’s up at 20 to 40 percent.”

As women have closed the wage gap with men over the last three decades, men have closed the appearance-anxiety gap, says Seefeldt.

“More attention is being paid to the body shape and physical appearance of males than ever before in this country,” she opines. “And the ideal of physical male beauty is more defined than ever before.”

Simpson also senses a tightening of male aesthetic standards.

“It used to be if a man carried his weight well, it was OK,” he says. “But now you have more men seeking out a permanent solution for weight loss. As a matter of health and competitive advantage.”

Why the heightened male obsession with appearance? Well, there’s always everybody’s favorite hobgoblin — the media, as maligned in the recent documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster,” which laid the blame for America’s anabolic fixation squarely at the feet of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

For Seefeldt, the answer is a bit more synergistic. She cites a well-known study involving G.I. Joe dolls from 40 years ago and today (predictably, today’s dolls are a lot buffer) and emphasizes the early role of caregivers.

“Media is one contributing factor, a very powerful factor, but we can’t overlook relationship factors,” she says.

Nor economic ones. As a largely untapped market, men represent the last proven reserves for the cosmetic surgery and weight-control industries. No wonder they’ve been targeted with somewhat alarmist ads like the one for the Lap-Band.

Mesa-based eating disorder specialist Rita Archambault says the heroin comparison struck her as “very bizarre.”

“I’ve been a counselor for 16 years, and I’ve never heard that,” she says. “Food obsessions are hard to break, but you don’t go into physical withdrawals the way you do with chemicals. Maybe if you’re an older female, and are going through menopause, and have joint pain, then losing weight would be harder than quitting heroin.”

Defending the ad, Simpson says the statement wasn’t based on an actual weight loss/heroin study, but a simple comparison of recidivism rates. According to Simpson, 98 percent of obese people who lose a significant amount of weight regain it, higher than the percentage of heroin addicts who slide back into use.

He also clarifies the ad’s implied bias against dieting and exercise, suggesting that overweight people “should do that as a first line.”

Archambault agrees.

“My understanding is that the Lap-Band is a measure that is appropriate for people who need a drastic change and are at risk for type 2 diabetes,” she says. “But it would seem to me to be more appropriate to try and diet and have some healthy exercise before you escalate to surgical intervention.

“You don’t kill an ant with a cannon.”