Plastic surgery billboard that declares ‘size matters’ causes controversy

A Riverside County billboard that advertises breast augmentation surgery by declaring that bigger is better has raised the ire of a Murrieta High School student, who says the message should come down.

The sign, which sits along Interstate 15 in Murrieta, shows the words “size matters” between a B-sized coffee cup and the much larger D-sized coffee cup.

The sign was put up by Dr. Brian Eichenberg of Renuance Cosmetic Surgery Center in January to promote what he said was his most popular procedure, according to KABC-TV.

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But Murrieta High School sophomore Anna Gorski said she was offended by the ad and started an online petition to have it taken down.

“This billboard is demeaning, objectifying, and inappropriate as it attacks women’s bodies and promotes low self-esteem,” the 15-year-old wrote on Change.org. “I do not need a billboard to compare my breasts to coffee cups and tell me that their proportional sizes matter.”

Eichenberg sees it differently.

He told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that plastic surgery is a positive thing “because it makes women feel better about themselves,” he said.

He told the paper that the majority of his clients are women who have had kids and want to restore their bodies to how they looked before having children. He said his office has 50 patients a day and that, typically, 48 of them are female.

“We’re very pro women,” he said. “We do surgery on them all day long.”

He also said the ad was meant to poke fun at societal values. He said that some people were offended by the ad but that he had “hundreds of people” who had said they liked it.

Gorski said she understands that the doctor has a right to advertise but feels it’s wrong to put the sign in a public spot where families, women and young girls can see it.

“By forcing us to view your advertising, you have shown a lack of respect to the citizens of this city who are not part of your target audience,” she wrote.

So far, her petition has gathered more than 700 signatures.

The surgeon told the newspaper that he “probably wouldn’t” take the sign down and that it was paid for until July.

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debbi.baker@sduniontribune.com

Baker writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune