Raven-Symoné got a breast reduction before she turned 18. How common is it for teens to get plastic surgery?

Before turning 18, Raven-Symoné was a star — there was her role as Olivia Kendall on The Cosby Show, a part in Dr. Dolittle with Eddie Murphy and her own Disney Channel. She had also already had plastic surgery.

During an episode of The Best Podcast Ever, which she hosts with her wife Miranda Maday, the actress revealed that as a teenager she "got a twofer" — a breast reduction and liposuction done at the same time — in reaction to body shaming and being called fat.

"There was paperwork involved," she said because she was a minor at the time. "My dad suggested strongly that I should get my breasts reduced. He was like, 'So you don't feel bad, is there anything you want?' I was like, 'What? Yeah, if I get lipo, will people stop calling me fat?'

She continued, "It was just a mess. Just being that young, the pain of it all, honey. I disassociated. So the recovery was, you know, a little painful."

She even suffered a seizure during surgery. "I actually had a seizure when I woke up from the surgery and I remember waking up and seeing everything," she recalled. "Then I had this dry mouth and couldn't breathe, and they were like, 'Oh yeah, you had a seizure.'"

Symoné recalled continuing to face criticism over her body. "I still got reamed through social media because I wasn’t as skinny as everybody else and they still called me fat. So it’s like, you get that done and it’s still not what everybody wanted to see," she said.

Despite the complications during her first surgery, Symoné, now 37, got a second reduction to get "a little bit more out 'cause they were still too big for others's feelings."

Symoné acknowledged that she had some back pain prior to the surgery and would've likely grown into even larger breasts than she has now had she not gotten the reduction. Her recommendation to young people thinking about plastic surgery is to consider all options. "If you want something changed in your body, live with it for a little bit longer," she said. "See if it changes and get therapy before [getting surgery]."

How common is teen plastic surgery, really?

There were 87,966 total cosmetic surgical procedures done on teens ages 13 to 19 in 2020, according to data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS)— the majority of which were nose reshaping, ear or eyelid surgery and different breast surgeries.

"In general, there are some procedures where young men and women after puberty often seek cosmetic surgery," Ashley Amalfi, MD from the Quatela Center for Plastic Surgery in Rochester, N.Y., tells Yahoo Life. "Those have been pretty consistent over time, and the ones that are most common are rhinoplasty and breast reduction surgery."

While breast augmentations on patients under 18 years old are against ASPS policy, Amalfi explains that there are different reasons that a younger teen might pursue a breast reduction or a reshaping of other parts of their bodies after puberty.

"Plastic surgery for some of these things can have a dramatic and positive impact on mental health. People can be very self-conscious about the way they look," she says. "It's amazing how much this transforms their lives in a positive way, and allows them to kind of come out of their shell and shine and not be ruminating or self-conscious about something that has developed after puberty."

What should parents and teen patients consider?

Amalfi explains that there are "strict guidelines about operating on minors," which in her practice includes "strongly encouraging our patients to be 18 years or older so that they're making those decisions for themselves." When dealing with a minor, however, it's most important to recognize a teen's motivation to get plastic surgery and where it's coming from.

"They're doing it for themselves, they have realistic expectations, they're healthy and appropriate to be an outpatient surgical candidate," Amalfi says.

Colette Sachs, an associate therapist at Manhattan Wellness, offers a therapeutic perspective on how to assess a teen's desire or need to get a surgical procedure.

"It would be essential to explore the teen's self-esteem, body image and overall emotional well-being to determine if the desire for surgery stems from healthy self-improvement or potentially unrealistic ideals influenced by external factors like social media, peer pressure or cultural influences," Sachs tells Yahoo Life. "Thorough assessment and open dialogue can help the teen gain insight into their expectations and the potential impact on their self-image and mental health. Ultimately, a collaborative approach that addresses the teen's physical and emotional well-being, supported by a solid foundation of psychological preparedness and family involvement, can lead to more informed and beneficial choices regarding plastic surgery for adolescents."

Medically, a patient should have already gone through puberty, according to Amalfi. "That's something oftentimes we would confer with their primary care physician as well, just to make sure that all those things are aligned so that we're doing this safely and also at an appropriate time," she says.

And although it's important to have a proper support system and to understand what to expect from a surgery and its outcome, Amalfi says it's not likely that there are longterm considerations.

"Just because someone has plastic surgery at a young age doesn't mean that they need to have anything further in their life," she says. "So a lot of times, these are just one-time procedures, we're able to correct or improve upon something. And once it's done, it's done."