(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-26 09:46

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has railed against a new trend in beauty-conscious Venezuela - breast implants for girls on their 15th birthday.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has railed against a new trend in beauty-conscious Venezuela - breast implants for girls on their 15th birthday. [AFP/file]

"Now some people think, 'My daughter's turning 15, let's give her breast enlargements.' That's horrible. It's the ultimate degeneration," Chavez said late on Sunday on his weekly TV show that lasted a record eight hours.

Venezuela is well known for its beauty queens, who have regularly won world crowns, and many women have plastic surgery in the oil-rich country where there is widespread spending on consumer items that would be considered luxuries elsewhere.

But Chavez, the self-styled revolutionary who came to office in 1999, is seeking to change those attitudes to create what he calls the "new man" to build a socialist society in this South American nation.

Chavez complained about the new fad of giving the plastic surgery operation at 15 - when Latin Americans celebrate a girl's coming-of-age - during a diatribe against what he says are Western-imposed consumerist icons such as Barbie dolls.

While breast implants are advertised on TV and banks offer special credit lines for such operations, if girls do get the enlargements they are not expected to become sexually active afterward.

"I am calling on your conscience, fathers of this country, mothers of this country, they are our sons, they are our daughters," Chavez said.

Still, Chavez, who happily describes himself as ugly, may struggle to change Venezuelans' mind-set to spending on plastic surgery.

Venezuelans' have a habit of avid consumerism since the 1970s oil boom in the OPEC nation.

In elevators, at huge, jam-packed shopping malls, women can be overheard openly boasting about their recent, conspicuous operations.