An audit by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) showed that its members carried out a total of 5,655 breast enlargement operations last year, almost 2,000 more than the previous year.
Alex Best, former wife of the late footballer George, is one of the most recent well-known women to resort to surgery for a fuller chest. She said she was delighted with her new breasts when she had implants last April, just weeks after her divorce.
Other celebrities have been less open about enhancing their cleavage.
Victoria Beckham has been widely reported as having a breast augmentation operation in 1999 but has never admitted it.
Marcelle D’Argy Smith, former editor of Cosmopolitan, said more women are going for breast surgery because it is an instant way of getting male attention.
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She said: “If you do not look like Kate Moss and do not have model proportions then breast enlargement is the best way of getting male attention quickly.
“It is achievable, like dying your hair blonde. It is more difficult to get legs like Elle Macpherson. They do not do long legs.”
The increase in breast enlargement operations is part of a wider trend of more people having plastic surgery. The BAAPS audit showed that overall cosmetic surgery operations increased by 35% in the past year.
Anti-ageing surgery also saw a dramatic rise as more people went under the knife in an attempt to retain their youthful looks. In 2005 the number of facelifts increased by 42%, surgery to lift the eyelids increased by 50% and brow lifts went up by 35%.
This has partly been fuelled by grandparents who retire with a large disposable income and want to look good to make the most of their retirement.
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More men are also opting for surgery in order to improve their looks. In the past year 11% of all the procedures carried out were on men, up from 8% in the previous year. Nose jobs and eyelid surgery were the most popular operations for men.
Men with wives much younger than themselves are having surgery to even out the physical differences in age. The actor Michael Douglas, whose wife Catherine Zeta-Jones is 25 years younger than him, was widely reported to have had a facelift last year.
Adam Searle, president of BAAPS and a consultant plastic surgeon, said: “These figures appear to represent a growing acceptance of aesthetic surgery, particularly in maintaining appearance with age and the number of men choosing to undergo surgery.”