This year, while millions of people across the globe were counting down for that midnight kiss and celebratory fireworks display, others were preparing for cosmetic surgery. With every promise of a New Year comes vows, goals and resolutions, usually of the calibre that sees us brushing up on our reading, abandoning mid-afternoon snacking and going to the gym more.

Dr. Gregory Antoine, a plastic surgeon at Boston Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, says that January is a popular month for cosmetic surgery. People hoping to look their best in the summer months queue up to receive liposuction and tummy tucks.

One such patient, 55-year-old David Reeves, said he had liposuction last December to flatten his stomach to make him “even leaner and meaner”.

New Year liposuctions become a trend, some surgeons say, since people turn to them out of desperation and frustration at not having lost weight the previous year.

As the nation’s waistband tacks on inch after inch, its plastic surgery figures continue to rise. Americans spent $10 billion on cosmetic procedures in 2009, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

The number of people receiving the treatment has held steady at 12.5 million, but the number of people paying for the treatment has shifted.

It is becoming increasingly more common for men to gift cosmetic procedures to their wives and girlfriends, according to plastic surgeons. Such is the case of Howard Van Emden, who, at 49, gave his wife a gift of $400 fake eyelashes.

“The bottom line is, anything that makes her as happy as this does makes me happy,” he said.