Sometimes you see a story, read on, and decide that someone, somewhere, has entirely lost the plot.

The headline was “Texting addiction could be a sign of infidelity”. The specialist law firm Pannone claimed that the most commonly cited telltale signs of a wayward wife in divorce cases were a sudden devotion to texts but then went on to add...boob jobs. Pardon?

If a woman with breasts heading south acquires a bit of upward lift and proud perkiness, does it seriously betoken a lover in the offing?

And where does this line of reasoning leave Peter Andre, who allegedly encouraged his wife Katie Price (aka Jordan) to have surgery recently to reduce the size of her boobs?

Husbands apparently feel that a new ten-years-younger version of their wife can't possibly think that the unaugmented, unreconstructed man in jim-jams she finds nightly in the marital bed is attractive. Jealousy and suspicions creep in: surely there must be someone else.

It's not true gents, it really isn't. It's a social trend. You only have to look to the US. Despite that country's financial state being rather worse than ours, US headlines last week claimed that the number of cosmetic surgeons in the country is about to increase fivefold. This suggests that American women believe cosmetic procedures are no longer luxuries that fall off the list during times of hardship but essentials that enable them to continue to live life to the full. What happens there comes here very soon.

Cosmetic surgery is no longer the well-kept secret of a few. The most recent figures in Britain show that breast enlargement remains the most common procedure for women, with 6,497 operations performed last year, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS). This was up 12.2 per cent on 2006.

But, in fact, the number of Britons going under the knife may be higher, as these numbers don't represent all cosmetic surgery practices in the UK, and increasing numbers of us are opting for cheap surgery abroad.

When the whole herd gets involved, infidelity on such a grand scale seems unlikely. So the evidence suggests that husbands are worrying unnecessarily.

But it is also the case - and it has been a consistent finding of research studies over the past decade - that about 7 to 15 per cent of those who go for surgery have body dysmorphic syndrome and imagine themselves to be ugly. Typically these women are dissatisfied by the outcome of surgery, and if asked about ideal breast size, these women always want larger breasts than those without this syndrome. Cognitive behavioural therapy is more appropriate here, asit helps to tackle their core psychological issues.

Meanwhile, husbands should relax. Women are having surgery mostly for their own sakes, which includes feeling sexier with their chosen partner.

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