Cosmetic surgery is big business on both sides of the Atlantic, and body lift operations have been available in the USA for several years. In the UK, the concept of a body lift was brought into the public eye in late 2003, when ITV featured a programme about Valerie Rogers, a healthy, active swimming coach who became morbidly obese after a car accident which triggered a growth hormone imbalance and rendered her immobile. After two years of dieting she lost 22 stone or 308 pounds (just under 140kg), but was left with an unbearable amount of excess skin, later removed in a pioneering total body lift operation.