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Ask Dr. Yang any questions about facial plastic surgery, including facelifts, necklifts, eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty), browlifts, otoplasty, and non-surgical treatments such as Botox and injectable fillers.
The cheekbones is above the upper redline in your diagrams. The area between the red lines is the cheek fat or buccal fat. When we are children and teenagers, the cheek fat (not cheekbone) is fuller and some people even call it baby fat. As we get older and lose weight we tend to lose this baby fat (buccal fat).
Some people who feel they have "chipmunk cheeks" will have surgical procedure called a buccal fat removal or reduction to thin out their cheekfat. Unfortunately this will cause the cheek fat below the cheek bones to hollow and become gaunt. Fillers and fat grafting can be used to inject into the skin and reduce the hollowing, but currently there is no procedure to reverse or replace the buccal fat removal.
You most likely lost some of your natural baby fat in your cheeks. Enough to create a small hollow in front of your chewing muscle (AKA masseter muscle).
I guess the bottom line answer, is that to fill in the hollow, you would need more "volume" in that area. The options to increase volume in the skin, are temporary fillers, long acting fillers, collagen stimulators, permanent fillers, submalar silicone implants, and fat grafting. Which option is best for an individual patient depends on their goals, cost issues, willingness or unwillingness to have repeat procedures, and other factors.
I haven't heard about the drinking plain water making your face slimmer. I have one patient say that when he drinks alot and becomes dehydrated his face becomes slimmer, by making his cheek fat area slimmer.
In general, if your face is slimmer, the cheekbones become more prominent.
Someone with high cheekbones has their cheek project forward so their cheek protrudes further out than their eyeballs. Some people who have a weak cheekbone, will be very flat and often times their eyeballs appear to protrude out further than their cheekbones. This is also called a negative vector configuration. Some surgeons will place infraorbital rim implants and/or cheek implants to make the cheek bone protrude further forward and give the appearance of high cheek bones.
I also think that people who do have high cheekbones appear to have their cheeks blend almost directly to or just below the lower eyelash line. Whereas people with low cheekbones appear to have an eye bag or obvious separation of the lower eyelid (bag) from the cheek fat itself.
People with wide cheek bones appear wide when you see them from the frontal view. Some ethnic groups have very wide cheek bones which make their faces look wide. It is also possible for someone with wide cheekbones to have a higher or lower cheek bones. How? The wide cheekbones is really caused by a widened zygomatic arch, which is a bridge of bone from the make cheekbone to the temple area.
Image Credit: http://www.e-radiography.net, the bone labeled 4 is the zygomatic arch from a front view. You can see if the arch was expanded from side to side, it can make a person's face look wide.
Also, can you explain why on the first picture, the person that smile seem to have his cheek protruding out more than compared to the second picture? Both have highcheeks bone.
You also mentioned about ''buccal fat'' in your post earlier, can I ask since I lost them naturally - meaning I didn't go for surgery, is there anyway I can regain them? By eating more? As I am very skinny.
The URL for the first picture broken and does not show, so I can't compare Mr. Beckham's face.
Everyone's face is different, and there are varying degrees of high cheekbones, coupled with the fact that the amount of cheek fat will vary from person to person and depending on their weight at the time.
Please compare the picture above with Mr Beckham's picture I posted.
The new picture I posted clearly shown that the cheeks tend to protrude alot more than Mr Beckham's face can you explain why is it so considering both have high cheeksbone?
Not many people have cheeks like Andy Lau. Mr. Lau is 50 years old, and Mr. Beckham is 37 years old. Although Mr. Lau's face does not show obvious hollowing in the buccal fat area, but the skin in the buccal fat area, is much thinner and shows more lines next to the smile lines, where Mr. Beckham has a single smile line and fullness instead of lines next to the smile lines.
I suspect that Mr. Lau has more buccal fat, but less fat under the skin (associated with aging) or thinning skin.
If we look at a younger Andy Lau, his cheeks don't appear to protrude as much as he does now. The picture below looks closer to Mr. Beckham's cheeks. Image Credit: http://menshairstyles.net/d/51078-1/you ... au+pic.jpg
Mr. Lau's cheeks appear to protrude more, because a high point will look higher if you place it next to a low point. Meaning a mountain will look taller, if it is next to a deep canyon, as opposed to the same mountain next to flat land.
I don't know what it would take for you to achieve the cheeks of Mr. Lau, since you have not consulted with me. Everyone is different, and for some people the goal to have the "apple" cheeks like Mr. Lau, may not even be possible.
I don't know of a way to specifically "grow" buccal fat, but general weight gain usually makes the facial fat increase.
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