Who can have liposuction: Anyone who is in or slightly above his normal weight range but has isolated pockets of fat.

What liposuction entails: A small, hollow tube (called a cannula) is placed under the skin through tiny incisions. The doctor then moves the tube back and forth, dislodging the fat cells, which are then sucked into the tube.

What to expect immediately after liposuction: The small incisions may leak fluids for a few days, and you’ll need to wear compression garments for a few weeks to keep swelling down and reduce fluid buildup.

How long it takes to see liposuction results: A few weeks or months, after the swelling subsides.

Liposuction side effects:

• Tiny scars in the folds of the skin where the cannula did its work.
• Areas of flesh that appear oddly wavy or bumpy due to uneven suctioning.
• Strange distributions in body fat due to weight gain after the procedure.

(After your teen years, you do not make new fat cells. So when you gain weight as an adult, you are just engorging the cells that you have.

After liposuction, you have an uneven distribution of fat cells, so any weight gained back will not appear the same at the site of the procedure as it does in other places on the body.)

• Discolorations or skin necrosis (cell death) at the site of liposuction.
• Baggy skin resulting from the procedure being performed on skin that is not elastic enough.

Liposuction Mortality stats: 20 to 100 deaths per 100,000 liposuction procedures. [via]