Charles Weijer reviews the website www.medicineonline.com, where cosmetic surgeons bid for customers

I worry of late that I am not as good looking as I used to be. I stopped exercising about a year ago after a move into the country. The bucolic setting disagrees with me. This week I turn 36 years old. But these aren't the bases for my complaint. The problem is that time has treated me more cruelly than similarly situated others. The rest of my birth cohort seems filled with vim and vigour. I, on the other hand, am fleshy, pallid, and prone to fits of profuse perspiration. This year I vow to do something about it.

My first stop is my general practitioner, the best doctor I have ever had. “Stewart,” I say, “this is the year I do it; tell me where I should start.” He reminds me of visits around this date in the past three years, when he talked me out of trying Prozac (1997), Viagra (1998), and an all-protein diet (1999). “I am …