Would you break your legs to make you taller? Men who go through hell for a little more height

As a teenager, Lewis grew to 165cm (5ft 5in) and stopped growing. He is said to be almost 4 inches (10 cm) shorter than the average British man; in fact, nine out of 10 men would be taller than him. When he found the courage to go out, he was wearing stacked heels. He didn't like how dating apps encouraged size discrimination. "You're a great guy - you deserve to be bigger," one woman said. At one point, he took anti-depressants.

I speak to Lewis the day after Rishi Sunak, reportedly 5ft 6in tall, became prime minister. He saw all the usual jokes on Twitter and elsewhere. "I believe it's one of the last biases that's considered acceptable," Lewis says. "It's interesting that people focus on something you can't change... Well, at least I thought you couldn't."

A few years ago, Lewis paid a surgeon tens of thousands of pounds to break off his legs and lengthen them. He knew it would be a risky and painful procedure. But he also knew that, if all went well, he would come out about three inches (7.6 cm) taller. "The day before the operation I started to get very nervous," says Lewis, who is British and prefers not to share his real name or any details of his operation, including the exact cost. "But that's what I really wanted."

Demand for cosmetic leg lengthening, also known as stature lengthening, is increasing , especially in young men. Thanks to advances in technology, changing attitudes towards cosmetic procedures, and the growing entrepreneurial spirit of orthopedic surgeons, clinics around the world are competing for patients. Yet this growing industry also raises concerns. What does that say about a society where potentially vulnerable people line up for major surgery? And what motivates surgeons who offer it?

"What motivates it, unfortunately, is money," says Dr. Dror Paley, a pioneering orthopedic surgeon in Florida and one of the best in the world. most experienced limb lengthening specialists. He now receives half a dozen new patient requests every day, up from one a day just five years ago. "For the first time, orthopedic surgeons have a share of the plastic surgery market, but that doesn't mean everything is done right," he says. "In fact, patients are preyed upon and come to me with horrible complications."

The operation is a remarkable feat of medical engineering - and not for the delicate ones. Techniques and devices vary. Paley's version uses nails or rods similar to those that have long been used to stabilize bad fractures. But when he drills the medullary cavity and drives the nail, he also intentionally breaks the bone in two.

The trick comes after the operation itself. A portable device placed against the leg at home creates a magnetic field. This activates a magnetic screw mechanism inside the nail, which is telescopic. At a typical rate of one millimeter per day, spread over three or four activations of a few minutes each, the nail separates the two sections of bone. The body makes new bone tissue to fill the growing gap.

This stretching process takes several weeks and involves a period of relative immobility, sometimes requiring time in a wheelchair, and months of physiotherapy to help the muscles adapt. Once lengthening is complete, the nail can be removed.

Patients typically extend both femurs (thigh bones) up to 8 cm (3.1 in ). The pain is apparently not from the magnetic activation, but from the general effects of surgery and a double leg fracture. It is also possible to lengthen the shins, or shins, by up to 5cm (2 inches).

Paley, who operates on a dozen UK patients a year, charges $95,500 (£83,000) for both femurs, and up to $275,000 (£240,000) for a two-year package that stretches all four leg bones for up to 16 inches of height gain cm (6.2 inches). A handful of UK surgeons offer leg lengthening procedures, charging between £50,000 and £70,000 for both femurs. Prices can drop to around half, depending on the device used, in "cosmetic tourism" hotspots like Turkey and India.

A 32-year-old American , who prefers not to share his name, wanted to extend all four leg bones from 5ft 8in to 6ft. He tells me that he paid about $50,000 at the Wanna Be Taller clinic in Istanbul, which is a quarter of the price he was offered in the United States. "I worked 80 hours a week and took out loans to pay," he says.

What worries Paley isn't the competition growing international community, but the fact that general orthopedists are more and more marked...