The $200,000 height-enhancing surgery from 'Materialists' is real — and more common than you might think

Yahoo

7 hours ago

In Celine Song's new romantic drama, Materialists, Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is perpetually on the hunt for a tall man. Not for herself, however — Lucy is a matchmaker, and her clients have height requirements they refuse to budge on. It's why, early in the film, Lucy says she understands why some men choose to go through with a $200,000 surgery that gives them up to 6 more inches of height: It adds to their value on the dating scene.
Without spoiling too much, this surgery comes up for a second time in the film — a twist that reframes what it means to be a catch in today's dating market. But this height surgery isn't just a plot point. It's a real way some people are coping with body image issues around their stature.
Dr. Dror Paley, founder of the Paley Orthopedic & Spine Institute's Stature Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., told Yahoo that he's done more than 25,000 limb lengthening surgeries over the course of his 38-year career. Most of these are done in order to correct imbalances in the body — if one leg is shorter than the other, for example. But on average, he said, he performs about 100 surgeries per year on patients who are just hoping to inch up in height.
Paley explained that limb lengthening involves gradually pulling apart a broken bone (the tibia or the femur) so that new bone grows in the gap. Traditionally, this was done using external metal frames, but now, it's typical to use implantable devices with motors or magnets that go inside the bone and are controlled remotely and adjusted slowly over weeks. With each adjustment, the devices extend the bone — no more than 1 millimeter per day — and the body naturally generates new bone and soft tissue to fill in the space.
Recovery is about five months long, Paley said, and physical therapy is required in order to get back functionality. Depending on the device used, some people may need a walker or crutches to move around initially.
As an orthopedic surgeon, Paley corrects 'pain and disability,' not aesthetics, which is why he was initially concerned about being judged by others in his industry for the procedure.
'It's very odd for us to treat patients for cosmetic reasons,' Paley said. 'It took a long time to figure out what the plastic surgeons knew all along: that they were treating body image issues.'
The price tag on such a procedure can vary but starts at around $80,000 to lengthen just the tibia, which can give a patient around 3 more inches of height, Paley said. But if a patient wants more height by lengthening the femur as well, that effectively doubles the cost of the surgery. With physical therapy and other recovery costs, Paley said that the $200,000 price quoted in Materialists is more or less accurate.
But for many patients, that cost is more than worth it. Paley recalled one patient, a young man fresh out of law school who could barely look him in the eye during their initial appointment. Paley performed the limb lengthening surgery on him, adding 3 inches to his tibia. A decade later, Paley said the patient came back to thank him with a firm handshake. He told the doctor that due to the surgery, he found the confidence to pursue a career in TV writing — something that he said he never would have done had he not had the surgery.
'We're looking to change how patients feel about themselves,' Paley said of the surgery. 'It changes their life.'
Alyson Curtis, a New York City-based mental health counselor specializing in body image issues, told Yahoo that she believes many straight men are 'suffering in silence' with body image issues, and that height tends to be a major insecurity for men on the shorter side.
'As a therapist, I fully validate that 'pretty privilege' is real, like no matter who you are,' she said. 'Our clients are swiping on the dating apps, and height is one of those metrics where you might not even be considered if you don't meet a certain requirement. And I think that the movie really accurately portrayed that.'
Ultimately, Curtis explained, the society we live in is 'obviously patriarchal' and 'made by men.'
'Their definition of masculinity is to be big and powerful still, and height represents that,' she said, noting that at the same time, many men expect and desire women to be 'very small,' leading to women experiencing body image issues around thinness. (In Materialists, a client tells Lucy that he doesn't want any 'fatties,' while another insists on dating a woman with a BMI no greater than 20.)
'We do live in a world that prefers people in a certain body type, or a taller height, or whatever,' she said. While Curtis said she always validates her clients for feeling bad about the ways in which society judges us, she noted that these standards don't have to define who we are. 'It can be very tormenting to sort of always feel inferior. But is it enough to hate yourself for the rest of your life? Is it enough to undergo a really intense surgery that not everyone has the means to do anyway?'
Instead, Curtis said, her work with patients comes from a place of finding acceptance in the things you can't or don't want to change.
'There are people in this world who want to change things about you, who are going to judge you — whether it's a personality attribute or even other features like the color of our skin,' she shared. 'There's so many things about us that people are going to reject that we just can't please everyone.'