‘Anxiety epidemic’

VETERAN feminist writer Bea Campbell is deeply troubled about the growing breast implants crisis that seems to be in the headlines every day.

Tens of thousands of women across the UK are demanding the removal of leaking or potentially leaking French-made PIP breast implants, including many in the North-East.

But for Ms Campbell, who divides her time between Newcastle and London, the real scandal is the fact that the number of women having breast augmentation has grown enormously over the past decade.

Figures from the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps) show that the number of cosmetic procedures in 2010 went up by five per cent compared to the previous year to a total of 38,274.

One of the biggest increases was in breast augmentation, which increased by ten per cent in 2010.

Because Baaps surgeons only carry out about a third of all cosmetic surgery, the true figure is probably well over 100,000 a year.

“There is something doubly tragic about this story,” says Ms Campbell.

“Number one is that a company has disgracefully exploited women’s anxieties about their bodies – and they have now been exposed – but there is a general issue which has emerged from this whole scandal that thousands of women feel that somehow they will feel better about their bodies if their bodies are surgically violated. Because that is what is going on here.”

Ms Campbell, who has worked as a journalist, broadcaster and academic, added: “It seems to me that it is a kind of collective self-harm.

What it reveals is that there is an epidemic of anxiety amongst women about their bodies.”

She says no one should be too surprised at that.

“Go into any corner shop or any station and look at the rack of women’s magazines. Go online to some of our newspapers and every day you get a kind of vicious scrutiny of women’s legs, women’s bosoms, women’s bottoms. Every inch, every little blob of non-perfection is mocked and derided. It is absolutely dreadful.”

While she says feminist perspectives have been maligned and mocked in recent years, she says one of the great contributions that feminism made when she was a young woman was to encourage women “to feel proud of their worth, to feel good in their own skin and to not allow themselves to be constantly judged. The freedom from that perpetual judgement was so releasing”.

Today, she feels that young women would benefit from more feminism in our schools “rather than more self-hatred”.

But that negative view of the rise in cosmetic surgery is not shared by North-East plastic surgeon Keith Allison, a member of Baaps.

Mr Allison has had a busy private practice at the Nuffield Health Tees Hospital, in Stockton, for seven years, as well as his NHS work in the region.

Most of his work is looking after women who have had breast cancer and need reconstructive surgery.

HOWEVER, a substantial minority are people who have decided they want to change the shape or size of their breasts.

He said: “Most patients requesting breast enhancement surgery are often small-built ladies or ladies who have very little breast tissue, and the commonest reasons for wanting an operation to enhance their breast shape and size is to increase their self-esteem, to make their clothes feel and fit better.”

Other women have virtually no breasts, but prominent hips, and want more of an hourglass figure.

He said: “These ladies are nearly always happy with their operation. They get a great improvement in their quality of life in terms of self-confidence.”

He also points out that the technology to carry out many cosmetic surgery procedures has been around since the Sixties.

He says: “It is like a lady looking in a mirror and putting some lipstick on. They are doing this to feel better, maybe to be more attractive to the opposite sex. Cosmetic surgery is just an extreme version of this.” However, he adds that women considering having cosmetic surgery, including breast augmentation, should be fully aware that different hospitals and clinics provide different services.

He says there is a two-tier service, with providers such as the Nuffield group offering a high-quality service compared to some private clinics, where cheaper implants are inserted by surgeons who are not necessarily cosmetic surgery specialists.

He says: “The playing field is not level. The buyer must beware.

“The implants I have used have never had any problems, but if there were any problems, of course, I would look after my patients.”

Gemma Pepper, a 29-year-old mother-of-two from Middleton St George, near Darlington, had suspect PIP implants put in privately two years ago.

She recently travelled to London to take part in a demonstration against two private clinics that have so far refused to pay for women to have the implants taken out.

Ms Pepper, who says she is now in constant pain from her right breast and is waiting to see if the NHS will help her, says people such as Ms Campbell do not understand why women have breast enhancement.

She says: “They all think we are glamour models and we are doing it for vain reasons, but the majority of these women have a very low self-confidence.”

In her own case, she says her breasts changed dramatically after feeding her two children for years.

“Mine virtually disappeared. I was a full C cup but I went to a double A cup. It affected me to the extent that it was detrimental to my marriage.”

Ms Campbell says there is one further aspect of cosmetic surgery that affects many women in the North-East.

She says: “It is primarily an industry that has exploited middle class and well-off women, but it has also left working class women feeling c**p because they cannot afford it.”