LUCY CARNE

the name of female empowerment that we should celebrate all sizes and let women do what they want with their bodies. But that is where the problem with this trend is rearing its ugly behind.

It has morphed into a hideous — and deadly — freak show.

The Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) of enlarging bottoms to bizarre proportions is the deadliest of any cosmetic procedure, with one person in every 3000 operations dying.

While there are no known deaths in Australia, there have been many overseas, including Evita Sarmonikas, 29, of the Gold Coast, who died during a BBL procedure in Mexico in 2015.

The notorious procedure of injecting fat from the body into the buttocks is so dangerous, a specialist Aussie task force was set up to warn women of its risks.

“There’s no question there’s been an emphasis on the aesthetics of the butt,” Dr Tim Papadopoulos said.

Dr Papadopoulos, the taskforce chairman and past president of Australasian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, has overseen an audit of about 330 Australian and New Zealand plastic surgeons.

While the results are set to be released later this year, but he says they were reassured to find Australia was “safe and conservative” in regards to

“Not since the Victorian era, have we been so infatuated with engorging women’s rears”

BBLs. He urged women considering the procedure to seek out only Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons qualified plastic surgeons.

Alarmingly, some GPs are now doing BBLs, and those women with not enough body fat for transfer injections are bulking up at fat farms, Dr Papadopoulos revealed.

So what happens to all these rotund bums when the aesthetic obsession moves on to the next body part?

“Over time and, as the ageing process takes effect, the skin’s elasticity may not support the additional fat and the bottom may become lopsided, droopy and lumpy,” a British cosmetic surgeon has warned.

Here’s hoping they’ve been put out of public view by then.

Lucy Carne is the editor of RendezView.com.au