As part of their body image campaign the Loose Women panel yesterday tackled a rather embarrassing and awkward taboo – vagina dysmorphia.
Andrea McLean, Nadia Sawalha, Stacey Solomon and Jane Moore revealed they want to smash the stigma surrounding vaginal health and opened up about the growing trend of female labiaplasty.
A report featured in The Sun today has revealed the demand for so called “designer vaginas” has soared due to the popularity of yoga.
So the question is: would you get your vagina designered?
Speaking to the publication, Doctor Paul Banwell has said Britain’s recent fitness boom has fuelled the rise in women wanting the procedure. Previously, it has been thought that pornography and TV shows about cosmetic surgery were to blame for the rise in demand, which is now five times higher than it was in the late 90s.
“A few years ago, everyone was talking about the impact of the so-called porn industry,” Doctor Banwell said.
“Personally, I’d say I don’t see that in my patients. They are concerned about functional things. The boom in physical exercise in the past 10 years has driven it.
“I think porn is an influence, but that influence is very small. What is driving things is yoga, sport, exercise and outdoor living.
“Women want to feel comfortable in tight leggings.”
The debate on Loose Women sparked a number of people to respond that they wouldn’t even have thought about this as a problem.
But one person told how her designer vagina made her feel much better after the birth of her baby.
Opening up the Loose Women discussion Nadia explained her personal story.
She told her fellow panellists: “I remember sitting there with my legs open after having my baby and sobbing my eyes out because [my vagina] looked so deformed.”
Stacey revealed a similar experience to Nadia: “When I had Zach I wanted to look because I wanted to see what it looked like.”
Going on to talk about the pressures of young people nowadays and how influences such as social media can affect a young person’s perception on what they should look like, Nadia admitted she worries for them.
Stacey, 29, opened up about the insecurities she felt while growing up.
She said: “I was worried about what people would think. I did have those insecurities and now I think, ‘is it massive?’ or ‘can anyone get anything from this?'”
Worryingly the trend is also extending to an increasing number of children aged as young as nine who are concerned about the appearance of their intimate areas.
This summer, leading adolescent gynaecologist Dr Naomi Crouch, revealed that GPs were referring to a rising number of children for the procedure.
“Girls will sometimes come out with comments like, ‘I just hate it, I just want it removed,’ and for a girl to feel that way about any part of her body – especially a part that’s intimate – is very upsetting,” she told the Victoria Derbyshire programme.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said the operation should not be carried out until a girl has finished developing, after the age of 18. But according to the Evening Standard, in 2015-16, more than 200 girls under 18 had labiaplasty on the NHS – 150 of them were under 15.
The stars then moved on to speak to expert Larisa Corda, who revealed that girls as young as nine are considering labiaplasty.
She revealed that she has seen a rise in patients seeking help for anxiety by new pressures to have the ‘perfect’ vagina.
She said: “Children as young as nine are going to their doctors, which is really distressing.
“They get inundated with images from social media and believe they have to conform to looking like that. There’s not enough education on what is normal.”
The panellists were clearly shocked and were quick to question why a child that young would even consider having surgery.
Jane jumped in saying: “I would question that child’s background. Where are the parents?!”