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Influence: Celebrities with surgically enhanced breasts, such as Chantelle Houghton and Katie Price, have been blamed for the huge surge in teenagers going under the knife
Teenagers are rushing to have breast enlargement surgery in an attempt to copy their celebrity idols.

The number of girls having the procedure has more than doubled in one year.
But experts warn that young people are putting themselves at mental and physical risk, because in many cases their bodies have not finished developing.

Figures from the country's largest three cosmetic surgery chains show that almost 600 teenagers had their breasts enlarged last year.

One company has reported a fivefold increase on the year before.
Transform has a chain of 22 clinics and offers surgery on interest-free credit.

Last year it performed 169 breast enlargements on girls aged 18 and 19, up from only 31 the year before.

Spokesman Shami Choudhry said credit deals made the procedure, which costs up to £5,000, more attractive to teenagers.

She said many were copying celebrities such as Chantelle Houghton, 24, who won Celebrity Big

Brother in 2006, whom they read about in magazines such as Heat and Closer.

"Young women read in magazines about personalities, like Chantelle, who have had breast augmentations and have a great influence on teenagers," she said.
"Eighteen and 19-year-olds are big consumers of weekly celebrity chat titles.
"Every edition contains something about cosmetic surgery, and women who read these magazines often buy two or three of them a week."

The Hospital Group, which has 14 clinics, has also seen a surge in demand.
It carried out 203 breast enlargements on girls of 18 and 19 last year, more than twice as many as the year before.

And the Harley Medical Group, with 19 clinics, performed 180 operations compared to 90 the year before.

Kafeh Mokbel, a consultant breast surgeon at St George's and the Princess Grace hospitals, both in London, carried out a breast augmentation on a 19-year- old last week.

He said: "This young woman wanted the procedure to enhance her confidence about her body image when going on beach holidays. Her parents funded the procedure."

Most British cosmetic surgery clinics do not operate on women under the age of 18.
One company, SurgiCare, turns away those aged 18 and 19, and urges them to come back when they are 20.

Mark Bury, chief executive of SurgiCare, said: "In some cases these women have not finished developing.

"Even if they have, surgery may be a knee-jerk reaction or a result of peer pressure."
Eileen Bradbury, a Harley Street consultant psychologist who counsels patients considering surgery, said having an operation too young could affect a girl's mental state.

"If you have surgery for the first time when you are 18, then you face a lot of surgery

throughout your life to replace the implants, with the possibility of something going wrong every time," she said.

Breast enlargement is the most popular form of cosmetic surgery for women in the UK, followed by eyelid surgery, face lifts and liposuction.

The fifth most common procedure is breast reduction. Among men, growing numbers are having operations to reduce the size of their "man boobs" or "moobs".

There was a 27 per cent rise of these last year to 224

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