Plastic surgeons are reporting a surge in women going under the knife for Brazilian butt lifts after weight-loss from Ozempic left them with deflated backsides. 

One plastic surgeon in New York City said BBL appointments have ‘doubled’ over the past year, while a second doctor in Las Vegas said his office has seen a ‘massive 50 percent spike’ in bookings.

Surgeons and med spas in Florida also said they are seeing a ‘noticeable uptick’ in enquiries of Ozempic users looking to restore their behinds.

Ozempic and similar weight loss drugs like Wegovy have surged in popularity, with 15.5million Americans now having tried them as a way to shed pounds.

But the rapid weight loss people experience has left them with sagging buttocks — termed ‘Ozempic butt’ — and led them to sign up for a cosmetic procedure to restore their plump behinds.

The above from Dr Christopher Costa shows before (left) and after (right) images of a BBL performed on a woman who had used a popular weight loss drug

These images, also from Dr Costa, show another woman’s backside when she came in after using a weight loss drug (left) and following her BBL (right)

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Dr Christopher Costa, who runs Platinum Plastic Surgery in Las Vegas, told DailyMail.com: ‘Many of these individuals are dealing with “Ozempic butt,” where the quick loss of weight and muscle leads to a sagging, flattened appearance [of the buttocks].

‘They often lose significant volume in their buttocks and see less definition in their waist and hips, making the buttocks appear deflated, droopy and out of proportion with the rest of their body.’

He added: ‘I’m seeing a lot of patients who are ecstatic about their weight loss but discouraged by the impact it’s had on their buttocks, leaving them feeling less confident.’

In most cases, surgeons say their patients are range from 20 to 40 years old and have typically lost more than 20lbs using weight-loss drugs.

Mostly, their weight loss has not been proportional and the women coming in for a BBL seem to have lost most of the weight around their hips, buttocks and thighs, but are still carrying excess weight in their abdominal area.

The backside is one of the main areas where subcutaneous fat — or fat directly beneath the skin — accumulates, which is quickly lost during weight loss.

It also contains a group of three large muscles, called the glutes, which may shrink if someone takes weight-loss drugs without exercising and eating a high-protein diet.

Dr Derrick Antell, a plastic surgeon in New York City, also reported the surge in appointments, saying: ‘We are seeing a lot of these patients where they were on Ozempic but then they get a saggy, hangy, butt, so to speak. A BBL is like a facelift for a butt, and it’ll help to restore its appearance.’

He said his clinic was normally only doing 50 BBLs per year, but this year the number has doubled to a hundred. 

There are two main operations that plastic surgeons use to restore volume to weight-loss drug users’ backsides.

In cases where the patient still has abdominal fat, the fat cells from this area are removed and placed into the buttocks to restore its volume.

In the second procedure, known as a butt lift, surgeons make an incision along the bottom of the buttocks, remove a ‘croissant shaped’ area of excess skin and then pull it up to lift and tighten the area.

This procedure may also involve fat transfers to the buttocks from other areas of the body to help restore its shape.

BBLs typically cost between $8,000 and $15,000, the surgeons said. 

In a number of cases, Ozempic users are also opting to have filler injected into their backsides to restore its shape.

Filler is a liquid injected under the skin to add volume. It is often used in the face to minimize wrinkles and give patients a younger look.

It costs about $6,500 for 20 syringes, with medical spas saying patients tend to be in their 40s and 50s and have already lost at least 50lbs.

However, patients who get filler into their buttocks will need to get more injections every six months to two years because the body naturally absorbs filler over time, whereas a BBL is considered a permanent fix.

Marlee Bruno, who owns the medical spa Mind Body & Soul Medical in Pensacola, Florida, told DailyMail.com the number of patients coming in for filler have doubled over the past year and a half at her med spa.

BBLs hit a record high in 2023 while butt lift surgeries also appear to be rising

Popularized by celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Iggy Azalea, BBLs rose to fame in the mid-2010s.

And surgeons are now suggesting the procedure may be receiving a new fanbase thanks to the Ozempic boom.

About 1.7 percent of Americans — or 5.6million people — were prescribed a weight loss drug in 2023, according to a data analysis by healthcare company Epic Research.

This was up 40-fold from five years before, when they estimated only a few hundred thousand Americans were on the drug.

Surveys from this year suggest that six percent of US adults — or 15.5million people — have now tried a weight loss drug.

Dr Michael Jones, from Lexington Plastic Surgeons in New York City, added: ‘The assumption was that as patients lost weight on their own through Ozempic, they might not need treatments like liposuction.

‘However, what we are actually seeing is a new trend: Patients who were previously too obese to qualify for surgery are now using Ozempic to lose enough weight to bring their BMI into a safe range for cosmetic procedures.’

Last year, a record 29,400 people got a BBL in the United States — up three percent from the year before and 20 percent from 2018, when weight loss drugs first became available.

There was a dip in 2020, with 21,000 BBLs being carried out, although surgeons said this was linked to the Covid pandemic and people being reluctant to leave their homes.

Surgeons are also reporting uplifts in other procedures related to loose skin caused by weight loss, including tummy tucks and arm lifts.

Dr Smita Ramanadham, a plastic surgeon in New Jersey, told this website: ‘BBLs have remained relatively stable for me, but I am seeing an uptick in arm lifts and tummy tucks, as well as breast lifts due to weight loss.’

In addition to losing weight in undesirable locations, Ozempic and similar weight loss drugs have been linked to a whole host of bad side-effects.

As well as nausea and vomiting while using the shots, patients have also reported the medication had caused their hair to ‘fall out in clumps’ and there have been reports of users suffering from poor mental health and suicidal ideations.  

By Lewis Browning

Published: 15:01 BST, 7 September 2024 | Updated: 19:27 BST, 7 September 2024

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Billie Shepherd and her husband Greg have quit their ITV show The Family Diaries after six series, according to new reports.

The couple, who regularly share intimate details of their family life on their hit show, have packed up the series to ‘let their children grow up away from cameras’.

Billie, 34, and Greg, 39, who share three children Nelly, 10, Arthur, seven, and Margot, 21 months, have grown up on reality TV since birth.

Their oldest daughter Nelly made her television debut on The Only Way Is Essex in 2014 when she was weeks old.

Similarly to Nelly, Arthur first appeared on screens shortly after he was born when Billie and sister Sam had their joint series The Mummy Diaries.

Billie Shepherd, 34, and her husband Greg, 39, have quit their ITV show The Family Diaries after six series, according to new reports

Billie and Greg, who share three children Nelly, 10, Arthur, seven, and Margot, 21 months, have grown up on reality TV since birth 

Since Sam quit the series in 2021, Billie and Greg have continued to showcased their glamorous lives on their own show – where baby daughter Margot was introduced.

A source told The Sun, ‘Billie has loved her time on the show and had loads of fun, but thinks it’s time she let her kids grow up away from the cameras for a bit.

‘She adores the memories she has made and will treasure them forever, she’s so grateful to the production company, but is excited about exploring new options with ITV.

‘There is no bad blood and the sky is the limit.’

MailOnline have contacted Billie’s representatives for a comment. 

An ITV spokesman said: ‘We are currently in production with a new series of The Family Diaries to air on ITVX and ITVBe later this year and are in conversations with Billie about projects for 2025.’

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline in May, Billie and Greg shared how they manage to keep their children ‘grounded’ after growing up in the limelight.

Billie said: ‘Obviously for us, you know, we always film and the kids have always filmed. They don’t really know much different.

‘I think unless there’s like something like a concern, like, you know, if Nelly comes to me and said anything she was worried about.

The couple, who regularly share intimate details of their family life on their hit show, have packed up the series to ‘let their children grow up away from cameras’

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Their oldest daughter Nelly made her television debut on The Only Way Is Essex in 2014 when she was weeks old

Similarly to Nelly, Arthur first appeared on screens shortly after he was born when Billie and sister Sam had their joint series The Mummy Diaries

Since Sam quit the series in 2021, Billie and Greg have continued to showcased their glamorous lives on their own show – where baby daughter Margot was introduced

‘Obviously, the children are always our number one priority in their happiness. But I think we’re very good at keeping them grounded.’

Billie added: ‘They are kids at the end of the day, I think, you know, Nelly is such a funny, happy little character, so like, personable.

‘She’s always been used to having like, lots of people around her. And I think that it will only be like, positive for her and her future.

‘That was always something I I’ve always thought about like, “Oh, would she be treated differently? Or would she, you know, comes to face with anything” but honestly, like we’ve had none of that.

‘We’ve had no dramas at school or nothing. We would know it straight away, because Nelly tells us everything. She’s very open with us. And we’ve luckily, like, we’ve been lucky not to experience anything like that.’

Boeing’s faulty Starliner spacecraft will finally begin its journey home today after three months spent docked to the International Space Station (ISS).

But experts have raised concerns over a small chance that Starliner could malfunction again, and potentially send it careening into the ISS. 

‘There is an extremely small probability that if all of the thrusters fail, the Starliner could impact the ISS,’ former US military Space System Commander Rudy Ridolfi told DailyMail.com.

‘This will be like NASCAR for NASA, some watch just for the crash,’ Ridolfi added. 

Starliner’s technical issues – including thruster failures – have lefts its crew stranded on the ISS for the last three months. 

Starliner will attempt to autonomously undock from the ISS today. Experts say there’s a small chance that thruster issues could cause it to crash into the space station. 

NASA officials decided it was too risky to bring astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore home on the faulty spacecraft. They will remain on the ISS until next year, which is why Starliner will return to Earth unmanned today. 

Shortly after 6pm ET today, Starliner will autonomously undock from the ISS and then begin a six-hour flight back to Earth.

The spacecraft launched June 5, carrying Williams and Wilmore to the ISS.

By the time the spacecraft reached the ISS, five of its 28 reaction control system thrusters had failed. 

As a result, Starliner’s first attempt to dock to the space station was waived off. But ultimately, the spacecraft successfully docked and Williams and Wilmore safely boarded the ISS.

As for whether these propulsion issues have been resolved, ‘I would say no,’ Harvard University astronomer and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told DailyMail.com. 

Although NASA and Boeing have identified overheating as a likely source of the issues, ‘they still don’t really fully understand why the thrusters are behaving the way they are, and so that means that they can’t say for sure that they’re not going to act up again,’ he said.

‘Having said that, I fully expect tonight to go fine,’ he continued. But in a highly unlikely worst-case-scenario, thruster issues during the undocking could cause Starliner to collide with the ISS. 

If one of the thrusters fails to stop firing when directed, for example, ‘it could push the Starliner into a collision with some other part of the space station,’ he said. 

A full timeline of Boeing’s Starliner program, from the singing of their massive contact to the incident that left two astronauts stranded aboard the ISS. 

Crashes like this have happened before. In 1997, a Russian space station was damaged when a cargo spacecraft missed its docking port and smashed into one of the station’s modules.

The collision punched a hole in the space station ‘and the astronauts had to rush to  close the hatches to that module before all the air ran out of the whole space station,’ McDowell said. 

‘That was a very, very scary thing. So that’s the thing you want to avoid,’ he added.

Additionally, if more than a certain number of the thrusters fail, there’s a chance that Starliner might be stuck drifting toward the ISS and ultimately crash, McDowell previously told Business Insider. 

‘That could happen, but it would have to be very specific ones that fail,’ Ridolfi wrote in a statement sent to DailyMail.com. 

‘There are five ‘sets’ of thrusters and if they can still rotate the spacecraft, sets of thrusters can take over for ones that are out,’ he continued.

If thruster failures do send Starliner on a collision-course with the ISS, a crash won’t happen right away, Ridolfi said.

That’s because although the two objects will be close to each other, they will be in slightly different orbits, he explained.

‘US Space Forces (USSF) will conduct what is called ‘conjunction analysis’ to show when the two objects could collide,’ he said, adding that it could become an issue about every 90 minutes as each object completes an orbit.

But the ISS also has its own thrusters that it can use to avoid a collision, which it does several times a year, Ridolfi said. 

Although, ‘it’s a pain to move the ISS mainly because it’s a pig and moves very slowly,’ he added. 

The ISS is equipped with its own thrusters that it can use to maneuver away from a collision, and does so several times a year. 

Plus, mission control will be ‘watching like a hawk, so the minute that any one of the thrusters starts to misbehave, they’re going to shut it down and take over with a backup thruster,’ McDowell said. 

But even if Starliner manages to successfully undock from the ISS, it won’t be out of the woods quite yet. After the undocking, the spacecraft will have to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. 

‘At that point, you’ve really got to have the thrusters working right, because they’re steering the ship as it’s firing its main engines, and it’s important that the main engines fire in the right direction,’ McDowell said.

‘The worst case scenario there is that you lose the thruster system completely, for example, and you can’t steer the spacecraft while it’s making the de-orbit burn,’ he added.

In that case, the Starliner capsule would re-enter at the wrong angle and speed, either causing it to burn up or remain temporarily stranded in orbit before re-entering uncontrolledly some time later, he explained. 

The issue with an uncontrolled de-orbit burn is that Starliner has heat shielding to help it survive re-entry. Therefore, ‘you could imagine chunks of this thing surviving to the surface,’ McDowell said.

 Starliner’s thruster issues likely played a role in NASA’s decision not to bring astronauts Sunita Williams (front left) and Barry Wilmore (front right) home on the spacecraft. 

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‘And if you were very unlucky, that could happen over somewhere populated. And you could have a repeat of the incident we had earlier this year when some poor guy had pieces of spacecraft go through the roof of his house,’ he continued. 

But this scenario is highly unlikely. McDowell thinks it’s more probable that thruster issues could cause Starliner to burn up over the Pacific Ocean instead of landing in White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico as intended.

In the event that Starliner’s thrusters misfire during re-entry, there’s little that mission control can do to resolve the issue, McDowell said.

If problems arise right from the start, mission control could shut everything down, keep Starliner in orbit for another day and try again tomorrow, he explained.

‘But once you’re well into the burn, if things go start going wrong there, you’re already on a trajectory where you’re going to hit the atmosphere in some form anyway. So you’ve just got to hope that everything stays right,’ he said. 

The risks associated with possible thruster mishaps both during Starliner’s undocking and its re-entry likely played into NASA’s decision not to bring Williams and Wilmore home on the spacecraft.

The space agency announced their decision at an August 24 press conference. 

Instead, Williams and Wilmore will remain on the ISS until at least February 2025, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will shepherd them back to Earth. 

At another press conference on Wednesday, NASA officials stated that they have been working to mitigate any risk to the ISS during Starliner’s undocking, and that tests of the spacecraft’s thrusters showed that they were working well. 

By City & Finance Reporter

Updated: 08:04 BST, 7 September 2024

Germany underlined its status as ‘the sick man of Europe’ as its once-mighty industrial sector suffered another slump.

In a report that stoked fears that Europe’s biggest economy is on course for another quarter of decline, official figures showed production fell 2.4 per cent in August.

Sinking feeling: Official figures showed production fell 2.4 per cent in August

That was far worse than the 0.3 per cent expected by economists and cast a further shadow over the eurozone as a whole.

Carsten Brzeski at Dutch banking group ING said the data was ‘a cold shower for everyone hoping for a speedy recovery’.

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The USA might be a top destination for them and Hollywood movies are beamed into their homes – but that doesn’t mean Brits always get the etiquette right on a trip across the pond.

But they needn’t panic. 

To help ensure faux-pas-free-forays, MailOnline caught up with travel experts to discover all the unspoken rules Brits need to know before touching down in the USA, from the one drink they should never order to the perils of swearing and only tipping five per cent.

Do…

Do remember to tip 

Travel experts told MailOnline the rules British tourists need to follow in the USA, including how much they should tip

Elaine Warren, travel blogger and founder of The Family Cruise Companion, says: ‘In the US, tipping is not just appreciated, it’s expected. Service workers like waiters, taxi drivers and hotel staff often rely on tips as a significant part of their income.’ 

She recalls when a British friend left an American waiter unhappy as they only tipped five per cent, believing it was ‘generous’. In the USA, tips are expected to be around 15 to 20 per cent of the price. 

Esteban Touma, a teacher at Babbel Live and stand-up comedian, adds: ‘Over the years Brits have made a bad name for themselves within the US hospitality community for not tipping enough, if at all. This can often lead to awkward, even hostile, encounters across the pond. Brits must be aware that most servers make their wage through tips.’

Do try to use American English

Britons – that’s a ‘sidewalk’ above, not a pavement. And those vehicles have ‘trunks’, not ‘boots’

Esteban explains: ‘For Brits visiting the US, you have the luxury of not worrying too much about a language barrier for your trip. However, don’t get complacent and forget that actually there are significant differences. So do remember commonly mixed-up words – trousers are “pants”, the pavement is the “sidewalk”, the car boot is the “trunk”.

‘This particularly applies to some common food words you might encounter when eating at a restaurant, café or diner, like how we say “appetizer” rather than starter and “check” rather than bill. 

‘Also, when you’re reading the menu, remember that “jelly” means jam, “arugula” is rocket, “cilantro” is coriander, “zucchini” is courgette, “eggplant” is aubergine and we say “cookie” rather than biscuit.’

Do respect cultural differences 

Elaine says: ‘The US is a melting pot of cultures, and what might be a norm in one area could be considered offensive in another. I once had a lovely chat with a Texan who was baffled by a British tourist’s comment about cowboy hats being “quaint”. Remember, what seems quirky to you might be an integral part of someone’s identity.’

Esteban adds: ‘Tourists should not make the mistake that all Americans are alike. Consider how accents can vary dramatically within just a two-hour drive in the UK. Now, think about the fact that the whole of the UK is smaller than a number of the US’s states, and is roughly 40 times smaller than the US.’

Do engage in small talk

Elaine says: ‘I’ve seen many Brits caught off guard by the American enthusiasm for small talk. Don’t be surprised if a stranger in an elevator asks how your day is going. It’s not an interrogation, it’s just friendliness. Embrace it, and you might find yourself having some delightful conversations with locals.’

And don’t…

Don’t use bad language in public

Esteban warns: ‘Swearing in public is frowned upon in the States, much more so than in the UK. It would be rare to be reprimanded by a stranger for using a “bad word” in public on the streets of London or Manchester, but say an expletive too loudly in some parts of the States and they’ll let you know what they think about it.’

Don’t order a cup of tea

The ‘age-old British tradition’ of a cup of tea is unlikely to be upheld in the States, where tea is served iced, if at all

Esteban jokes: ‘Unless you like your tea iced and sweetened, as it is found in the South, don’t assume that this age-old British tradition is upheld in the States. After all, we famously threw chests of the stuff into the Boston Harbour!’

Don’t overdo the sarcasm

‘While the British are known for their wit and self-deprecating style of humour, it is something that can be lost in translation with Americans, who can take some of those mannerisms personally or even take them seriously at face-value,’ says Esteban.

He adds: ‘Brits and Americans may share a language, but it does not mean that humour always translates well across cultures. As a comedian, I understand more than most the pain of a joke not landing, so I would warn Brits to consider their audience.’ 

Don’t forget about sales tax  

Esteban says: ‘You might go shopping wide-eyed at all the amazing deals you seem to be getting, until you reach the till and the total amounts to a lot more than you were anticipating. In stores, the price on the label is not the final price because sales tax has not been added. It varies state by state but can be around 10 per cent in some cities.’