Oh no, it's bikini time again!

4:47pm Wednesday 23rd July 2008

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WE all profess to loving nothing more than a relaxing afternoon in the sun . . . but do we really?

According to a recent survey, 80 per cent of women feel too self-conscious to wear a bikini and one in four would even consider surgery to get the perfect beach body.

Just one in 50 women is happy with the way her body looks come summer, with most wanting to lose an average of 19lbs before their holidays.

It seems summer is actually a difficult time of year for the majority of women who try to dress to impress but are not their ideal weight. In summer, shorts are shorter, tops are tighter and the dreaded bikini is getting smaller and smaller. The number of women not wanting to wear a bikini rose even further in the youngest group questioned, with 85 per cent of 16-24 year-olds. The size zero debate and the pressures of being thin came top as reasons for sarongs and dresses to cover up.

Almost half of the women questioned admitted that they would usually plan to spend over two months preparing for their first bikini outing of the year. This mostly consisted of dieting and the odd hop on the sunbed before taking a holiday, with one in five admitting to doing this.