No, if latest research is to be believed. An August 2007 study published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery revealed that women who’ve undergone breast enlargements are dying.

It’s not due to cancer caused by silicone – another popular myth – but because these women have higher suicide risks and are three times as likely to commit suicide than other women.

Loren Lipworth of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee and colleagues followed up on 3,527 Swedish women who had cosmetic breast implant surgery between 1965 and 1993. They looked at death certificates to analyze causes of death among women with breast implants. The results were shocking.

If women are undergoing surgery to look better and feel happier, why do the figures say otherwise?

Lipworth believes that some women who get implants may have psychiatric problems to start with, perhaps linked with lower self-esteem or body image disorders. And once you have it fixed in your head that you don’t look good, surgery really does not help.

Self-esteem and self-image are how and what we think of ourselves.

Yes, it's not easy for everyone to feel secure about their looks if the constant message is "You don't fit in". However confidence comes from within and is not made of silicon.

It's good to remember that breasts are a part of a woman, they are not the woman. If at all a woman wants to undergo surgery, perhaps it’s prudent to think about the reasons twice. And as Penelope says, “There are so many other ways to be sexy, people just need to be a bit more creative!”

In the photograph: Actors Jackie Chan and Mallika Sherawat in a movie still from  Hollywood film The Myth