Parents are taking children as young as three to plastic surgeons in China

[CVX]

Parents are taking children as young as three to plastic surgeons in China as part of a trend that is seeing the country's young generation increasingly putting themselves under the knife, state media reported [recently].



Xiong Xiangfeng, vice-president of Shanghai Ren'ai Hospital, told China Daily that "more and more" teenagers, accompanied by their parents, are seeking plastic surgery with his hospital.



Most want their noses enlarged and a fold cut onto their eyelids to make them bigger - to make them look more like the Westerners they see in Hollywood films and the ubiquitous advertisements on billboards and magazines in China.



More than 100 plastic surgery operations are carried out every day at the Ninth People's Hospital in Shanghai and about one-third of the patients are students who want to become more confident about their looks and improve their job prospects, said the newspaper.



The report said that in one case a mother asked a doctor to plant two dimples onto the cheeks of her three-year-old daughter 'to cultivate her sense of being a model."



Surgeons normally refuse to operate on people under 18 who do not have obvious physical defects, but they have planted noses for many children from the countryside "whose noses were bitten off by rats", the paper said.



Plastic surgery has become increasingly popular as Chinese have become wealthier and more conscious of their appearance.



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