The rise of the booty queens – has it gone too far?

Nearly everyone likes big butts these days, and you can’t deny it. They word ‘bootylicious’ is even in the Oxford dictionary (go Destiny’s Child!), as an amalgam of "booty" and the word "delicious".

But who started the obsession? Dr Constantino Mendieta is a plastic surgeon who specialises in buttock implants, and he says it’s all down to Jennifer Lopez:

“She showed how nice it can look when you've got the right curves.

“It's not that we never looked at the buttock before then, but it was a taboo subject. She drew attention to it in a good way.”

She certainly did. And when Destiny’s child released their hit song Bootylicious, we all noticed that Beyoncé was in the same league as Jennifer Lopez. However, no one could have predicted just how big these booties were about to get.

Enter: Kim Kardashian, Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea. Three celebrities who are as well known for their bums as they are for what they actually do. The difference between these women and JLo and Beyoncé, is that they’re not shakin’ what their mama gave them, they’re shakin’ their implants.

This obsession with having the perfect bum has led to a rise in illegal bottom injections in the US, particularly among dancers, as if you want to get a part in a music video where the song talks about a girl’s booty, you’ve got to have that shape. According to a US report, 10,000 butt implant procedures were performed in the US in 2013, and some women have even died from going to dodgy doctors.

While it’s good to see the curvy shape getting the positive attention it deserves, are we beginning to take things too far? We think it's about time we took a break from those lunges – our average sized booties do exactly what we need them to do, so let's just leave it at that!