US executives rushing for facelifts

With American companies preferring youth over experience, executives in their 40s and 50s are now resorting to cosmetic surgery in addition to familiar simple remedies like dyeing the hair.

Cosmetic surgery and other de-aging skin treatments are becoming de rigueur for baby-boomer executives of both sexes who fear being judged as over the hill, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

For many, including some top CEOs who have not yet gone public, plastic surgery is the next step in their rigorous fitness and beauty regimens that include several hours a week at the gym, expensive personal trainers and diet consultants, and hair treatments.

"I can't tell you the number of men I know who no longer are grey or who have covered bald spots with hair transplants," Pat Cook, president of an executive search firm, was quoted as saying by the daily.

In addition to vanity, these executives are driven by job insecurity. Even 45-year-olds who are unemployed worry that wrinkles will cut them out of the running.

They ignore the financial expense - work on eyelids cost $3,000 to $6,000, facelifts $15,000 to $25,000 - and the medical risks.

Novelist Olivia Goldsmith died last month at the age of 54 during a chin-tuck operation. A significant proportion of those who undergo operations are male.

A recent survey of senior executives by ExecuNet, a networking and job-search service, found that 82 per cent consider age a serious 'problem,' up from 78 per cent three years ago.