Healthy skin centre

‘Human Barbie’ injects her teenage daughter with botox

3rd March 2010 - A woman who styles herself the ‘Real Life Barbie’ has spoken of how she allowed her daughter to undergo botox treatment, despite being only 16 years old.

Several papers have reported how teenager Hannah Burge first had botox injections at a clinic in Spain last year, after her mother gave her consent.

The girl’s mother, 49-year-old Sarah Burge, a former page three model and bunny girl, claims to have undergone 27 cosmetic procedures and spent £180,000 on surgery to give herself the body of her dreams.

“I don’t want to look haggard”: Teenage girl

Her daughter told newspapers, including The Sun and the Daily Mail that she decided to have a botox injection because she was worried about wrinkles developing on her forehead and around her mouth. “Appearance is important to me and I don't want to look haggard and ugly by the time I'm 25,” she’s quoted as saying.

Reports say that, after returning from holiday nine months ago, the 16-year-old has had further botox injections at the hands of her mother, who describes herself as a qualified aesthetic practitioner.

One consultant plastic surgeon says he’s “flabbergasted” by the reports and describes a 16-year-old girl having botox injections as “ludicrous”.

Charles Nduka tells us it’s likely that more young girls will soon be asking for botox because the UK had “the most lax regulations in Europe when it comes to the provision of cosmetic services, both surgical and non-surgical”.

Bodily perfection

Last week, a Home Office commissioned report called for curbs on airbrushed images of women’s bodies as part of a package to prevent the sexualising of young people. The author, psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos, said girls were under pressure to always appear ‘hot’ because digitally enhanced photos promoted “ideals of bodily perfection that are difficult to attain”.

Mr Nduka tells us that a visit to any newsagent throws up endless images of the airbrushed female form. He says that in his Brighton clinic he sees “many young girls of 15, 16, 17 complaining about very mild degrees of asymmetry in their breasts because their assessment of what’s normal has been totally changed”.