Snide remarks from partners can drive a woman to plastic surgery

Around 690,000 women will go under the knife this year, more than three times as many as in 2001.

While a quarter of British patients said their decision was influenced by snide comments or concerns that they had become less attractive to their partners, all their U.S. counterparts claimed to have had the work done purely to please themselves.

The study - published in the journal Body & Society - also found that British women were more likely to keep their surgery a secret from family and friends for fear of being seen as vain.

Dr Debra Gimlin, a sociology lecturer at Aberdeen University who led the study of 60 patients on both sides of the Atlantic, said: "All my respondents were concerned with their physical attractiveness.

"But only the British women said they had undergone cosmetic surgery to suit the desires of a man."

Many of the women's partners made it clear they would pay for the procedures, she added.

"A bookkeeper explained she probably wouldn't have had a breast enhancement if it hadn't been for her partner," Dr Gimlin said.

"She said, 'He's not as much in love with me as I am with him. I wanted to do things that might make things right. I thought surgery might help'."

Differences in healthcare also affected a woman's decision to have surgery, she added.

In the U.S. private healthcare means only women who can afford surgery have it done, while in Britain procedures are "considered a social right rather than something to be earned," the study said.