Breast Reduction Can Spur Weight Gain in Young Women

Many women may opt for a breast reduction if they encounter issues such as recurrent neck, back and shoulder pain.

However, a new study suggests a link between these procedures in teens and young adult women and later weight gain.

“These patients should be targeted for healthy lifestyle changes to prevent weight gain,” said study lead author William Doyle Jr., a medical student at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

He and his colleagues published their findings in the February issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Excess weight can raise risks for complications after breast-reduction surgeries (mammaplasty), especially among teens, according to background information from the researchers. For that reason, overweight patients are advised to lose weight prior to these procedures.

But what about weight gain after these surgeries?

To learn more, Doyle’s team tracked outcomes for 56 patients under the age of 22 (average age: 18.6 years) who had breast reduction surgeries between 2015 and 2019.

Prior to their surgeries, about 29% were determined to be at a healthy weight, while the rest had BMIs in the overweight or obese range. BMI, shorthand for body mass index, is a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

The researchers tracked fluctuations in patients’ weight for an average of almost two years post-surgery.

They found that 39.3% of patients had any decrease in their BMI during that time. For most patients, body weight and BMI dipped a bit during the first year after their procedure but then steadily increased in the year or more after.

This was especially true for women who’d been at a healthy weight prior to undergoing their mammaplasty, the research team noted.

In contrast, rates of post-op weight gain were lower among women who’d already been overweight at the time of their breast reduction surgery, while women who’d been obese at the time of their surgery saw no rise in weight following the procedure.

The reasons behind these trends aren’t clear, Doyle and team suggested.

Hormonal changes after puberty might play a role.

“Another theory is that healthy lifestyle habits, including exercise and a balanced diet, are not established postoperatively,” the researchers wrote, adding that further studies of patient behaviors and attitudes toward lifestyle change would be needed to explore these factors.

Whatever the reasons, it might be reasonable to suggest weight-management strategies — education on nutrition or fitness coaching — for young women who opt for breast-reduction procedures, the research team concluded.

More information

Find out more about breast reduction surgery at the Mayo Clinic.

SOURCE: Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, news release, Jan. 29, 2025