600 British teenage girls have breast reduction surgery

London: A total of 647 British girls aged 15 to 18 have undergone state-funded breast reduction surgery in the past five years.

Shadow Health Minister Diane Abbott said the surgeries, which cost around 5,000 pounds each, were often a waste of precious funds of the National Health Service. She said it was due to women`s "obsession with physical perfection". "An obsession with physical perfection is driving women. Society needs to debate whether scarce NHS resources are best spent on a 15-year-old who has convinced herself her breasts are too big" Abbott said. However, a total of 359 women in their 70s also had the surgery, according to official statistics. In total, 21,328 women had reductions between 2006 and 2011. IANS