Hot off the chest press!

Two news reports struck me today.

First, this story about the swelling numbers for ''man boob'' reduction surgery.

New figures from the British Association of Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, due to be published on Monday, are reported to show the number of men opting for breast-reduction procedures last year rose by nearly half.

In the space of five years, the figure has increased from 22 operations in 2003 to 224 in 227.

A quick cruise on Google reveals all kinds of surgeons advertising the procedure surgery for the condition, called gynecomastia.

Hey, I can understand why a man would go for this, especially in this day and age when even guys are subjected to cultural and media tyranny of conforming to some impossible ideal. Welcome to our world, fellas!

Anyway, by coincidence, a regular reader in Plano, Texas sent me this today, about how, while the economy is going bust, new ''breastaurants' are trying to cash in on the Hooters apparent, um, uplift in the dining out market.

... inspired by the success of Hooters’ wings-toting female staff, restaurants such as Twin Peaks, Bone Daddy’s and other local operators with cute waitresses, cold beer and a male clientele are, well, busting out all over. And Texas, where the sole Hooters’ franchisee is both the chain’s sales leader and No. 1 in locations nationally, is a prime market for the "breastaurant" concept.

Well, why not? Personally I don't get Hooters. The wings are lousy and the ambiance not much hotter. I see the concept as a clever ploy to cash in on society's prudery and the male fixation with ladyparts. Everybody gets exploited, including the Hooters girls, as this recent story revealed:

Hooters Waitress Awarded Benefits After Being Fired For Bruises

Hooters officials say that Dye abandoned her job. They also admit that her bruises made her temporarily ineligible to work as a "Hooter's Girl."

The administrative law judge that heard the public hearing recently on the behalf of Dye's request of benefits ruled in the 27-year-old former Hooter Girl's favor. Her "inability to work due to bruises" was not a matter of workplace misconduct.

During 2008 Dye had been the victim several times to domestic violence. On September 3 she was badly beaten and some of her hair cut off after she left work for the day.

The next day Dye and her employers talked, agreeing that she should heal for a few weeks before working in the restaurant. General Manager Gina Sheedy said that the bruises that Dye had would have been visible outside of the Hooters uniform.

So, she gets beaten up by her partner and then fired instead of getting some sort of sick leave. Nice.

Well, it doesn't always go badly for Hooters in the courts:

Having withstood lawsuits by men who wanted to join the women-only waitstaff and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discrimination charges, Hooters had systemwide sales of $997 million in 2008, up 2 percent from 2007, according to a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution report. Hooters won’t admit to worrying about the competitors, even in a bad economy.

"At this point, there’s no Avis to our Hertz," said Michael McNeil, marketing vice president for the privately held, Atlanta-based Hooters of America. "We’re not looking over our shoulders."

No, but maybe they should be looking elsewhere.

With all those chesty men out there, those lawsuits may not get bounced by the courts next time.

UPPITY DATE: Ooopsy. As Michelle and Lagatta in the comments pointed out, I mistakenly referred to the breast reduction procedure as gynecomastia. It is actually the condition. I made the correction.

Comments

[lagatta]

Antonia, gynæcomastia is the condition, not the surgery. I have read various studies indicating that this is a growing problem among men, including men who are not overweight, due to "feminising" hormones and other crap in our food and environment, that also lead to serious conditions among both men and women.

[Michelle]

Minor editorial nitpick - the condition is called gynecomastia, the procedure to reduce their size is probably Breast Reduction surgery.

[Ashley]

The Hooters Girl Blog wrote about the man suing Hooters
http://thehootersgirl.blogspot.com/2009/01/men-suing-hooters.html

For those too lazy to click on the link she adds that Hooters Girls are hired as 'entertainers' which allows the company to set standards for appearance, age etc. It's the same as if you were an actor; you don't have males auditioning for Eliza Doolittle (though that might make an interesting show conme to think of it).
So that being said I can understand the restaurant saying that because of her bruises they don't want her working for a time. I am not saying that that makes the situation right, I think there is a gross lack of compassion for the situation. Hooters, however is a business, and there isn't a lot of compassion in the entertainment industry or the restuarant industry.

[WriterGuy]

I got rid of my man boobs by eating better and exercising more. We're a nation of flabby layabouts. That's why it's a growing problem. That stuff about "feminizing hormones" is bunk.

[Antonia Zerbisias]

Congrats on the weight loss, Writer Guy. I agree that bad eating habits and lack of exercise are major factors. But, considering documented evidence of lower sperm counts and radically decreased birth rates of male babies in places where all these feminizing chemicals have accumulated in the environment, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that as bunk.

Here's a very recent report:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1121283/Gender-bending-chemicals-rivers-grow-potent.html

''Scientists have found an entirely new class of chemicals that is changing male fish into females – and which could be contributing to the soaring rate of infertility and defects in men.

''They have yet to find the source of the chemicals, known as anti-androgens, but believe they could come from pesticides, industrial pollution or pharmaceutical drugs.

''Until now it was assumed that the most serious gender bending man-made chemicals were those that mimicked the female sex hormone oestrogen.

''The new pollutants, which were discovered in more than 30 rivers, work by blocking male sex hormones such as testosterone. In animal tests they have shown to cause low sperm counts and genital deformities.''

[sooey]

There's no accounting for taste, hence some people choosing to eat at Hooters.