We’ve all had those days: we look in the mirror and wonder, how can we get rid of a double chin? Okay, maybe if you’re super young or athletic you haven’t had as many of those days. But most of us at one point or another are kind of unhappy with our jawlines.
We think there are a couple of reasons why the double-chin thing might get on our nerves. First and foremost, there’s not really much we can do about it—at least not quickly. Once that double chin forms, it’s there for good (unless we look up). Second, it’s not like we have much control over the formation of the double chin in the first place. It’s not like we can decide where the fat goes.
Dieting and exercise are always going to be crummy ways to target areas of fat on your body. There’s just no way for us to specifically select one part of the body to shed fat. But there are some other ways we might be able to do that.
Cosmetic Surgery for Double Chin Fat
When we really want to get rid of fat around the jawline—and do so in a hurry—we need to take matters into our own hands. Diet and exercise might work… eventually. And those silly videos you see on YouTube of people bouncing their heads up and down are definitely not going to do it. The solution, then, can often be to look into aesthetic cosmetic surgery. And there are basically two ways to do that.
Liposuction
Traditionally, those who have wanted to get rid of double chins have undergone liposuction. Now, liposuction is an excellent procedure—we’re not knocking it. But liposuction around the neck and the face tends to be quite delicate. That has nothing to do with liposuction, necessarily, so much as it has to do with, well, our faces.
The proportions of the face ten to be very specific. There’s plenty of room for flexibility and variability in the shapes of our faces, but we have to be careful. If we take out too much fat from around the jawline, it can make our faces look unbalanced. And we definitely don’t want that!
Experienced surgeons are really the best way to go here. If we can find an experienced surgeon who can contour the jawline in a way that makes sense for our bodies, we’ll likely enjoy the results a lot more.
Kybella
Until the past year or so, liposuction was basically the only option for getting rid of your double chin (with the exception of maybe Coolsculpting or similar devices—but even they are pretty new). But that’s all changed with the development of a new injectable called Kybella.
Essentially, you make a few injections of Kybella and then watch as your double chin disappears. Okay, okay, it’s not that miraculous. But Kybella is composed of the same basic chemicals that break down fat in your own body. For most patients, this means that a series of treatments will drastically reduce the size of one’s double chin.
Now, it doesn’t work for everybody. But most people will see results in a few months after the treatment.
How Much Is an Athletic Jawline Worth?
One of the worst parts about “double chins” is that you they aren’t really dependent on our overall body mass. We could be in perfect shape but still look in the mirror and see a double chin (curse you, biology). That’s why, for many of us, getting rid of a double chin is key to both confidence and self-esteem.
When we look in the mirror we want to see a svelte, athletic looking jawline because that’s how we think of ourselves. That’s the body image we want to project. A double chin can often be seen as a sign of aging or of poor health. And while neither of those are exclusively true, many of us simply don’t want to be seen that way.
Eliminating a double chin—whether through liposuction or Kybella injections—is a way for us to have a bit more control over the image we project. So maybe it’s only right that now we spend a little less time thinking about how to get rid of our double chin and more time actually doing it.