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The beauty industry has reached a point that would have seemed unimaginable only a few years ago: it is now possible to alter not only body fat, breasts or facial features, but the shape of the ribs themselves. A procedure known as rib remodelling involves deliberately damaging the lower ribs in an attempt to make the waist appear significantly narrower, The Independent reports.

The operation is performed under general anesthesia through small incisions. Using a specialized radio-frequency device, the bottom two ribs are fractured and then bent inward, creating a narrower waist. The desired effect is often compared with Kim Kardashian’s silhouette — wide hips and buttocks paired with an extremely slim waist.

After the procedure, patients are required to wear a specialized medical corset for 23 hours a day for three months to help the damaged bones heal in their new position.

The procedure remains relatively uncommon and controversial. It is not openly offered in much of the UK, prompting those interested to travel abroad. One company, Snatched Waist, arranges the procedures in Bali and also offers them in Australia.

Among the company’s clients was 23-year-old Australian influencer Matilda Baxter, who has more than 960,000 followers on Instagram. She paid $14,000 for the procedure, while posting content about it on social media was part of her agreement with the company.

Baxter acknowledges that procedures like this can contribute to unhealthy beauty standards. At the same time, she considers her appearance part of her professional image and says she views spending money on her body as an investment in her own business.

Another patient, Samantha Garofalo, works in postoperative rehabilitation and underwent the procedure about a year ago. Before surgery, her waist measured around 69.2 cm, with a target of 61 cm. Six weeks later, she said it had narrowed to 57.2 cm, while a year later it had settled at around 61 cm. Samantha says she achieved the silhouette she wanted and would undergo the procedure again.

However, she stresses that social media usually shows only a tiny incision and an impressive “before and after” photograph, with little discussion of the recovery process. After surgery, patients face restrictions on sleeping and movement and may have to wear a compression corset for weeks.

Doctors are particularly concerned by how recently the technique was developed. The RibXcar technique was created by Peruvian plastic surgeon Raul Manzaneda Cipriani in 2022. There is still little long-term research into its safety, while the procedure’s creator has authored a significant portion of the scientific research on the technique and has a financial interest in its commercialization.

According to Snatched Waist, around 5,000 of these procedures have been performed worldwide. By comparison, plastic surgeons performed more than one million tummy tucks and around 1.6 million breast augmentation procedures in 2024 alone.

Plastic surgeon Ben Miranda warns that deliberately fracturing the ribs carries significant risks. Potential complications include improper bone healing or displacement, loss of the achieved correction, as well as pneumothorax and hemothorax, which can be life-threatening in severe cases.

An additional problem can arise when patients undergo surgery abroad: once they return home, they may struggle to find a specialist willing to treat potential complications.

A procedure promising an ideal “hourglass” figure therefore represents another example of how far the modern beauty industry has gone in its pursuit of altering the body’s natural proportions. If women once focused on changing their skin and soft tissue, the target of cosmetic surgery has now moved to the bones themselves.

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