A British childhood isn’t what it used to be.

Our children are growing older younger and want to be adults when we still see them as kids. And as well as acting grown up they want to look like adults too. But is it all too much too young?

In a new three part series, Too Much Too Young explores why our kids are growing up so much quicker and meets the youngsters who’ve decided that childhood is over and it’s time to achieve aesthetic perfection through dieting, surgery and sunbeds and experience the rites of passage of drink and sex.

The first programme, Teen Boob Jobs: Too Much Too Young meets four teenage girls who aren’t content with just acting ‘grown up’: they want to look like adults too and are desperate for boob jobs.

Gemma is just fourteen, but already she’s dreaming of going under the knife. She says she’s been thinking of nothing else since she was ten. And Gemma doesn’t just want bigger breasts – she wants them to look like they’re fake too.

She tells the programme: “‘I think that the perfectly round boobs are actually the nicest that I’ve seen because if they’re just there on your chest … you can see and it’s obvious you’ve had a boob job and I think that’s a good idea.”

Gemma’s mum Doris has told her daughter that she doesn’t want her to have the surgery, but Gemma insists as soon as she is 18 she will go under the knife.

Sixteen-year-old Amanda couldn’t wait for a boob job until she was 18 – the age advised by British cosmetic surgery guidelines. So when her parents split up she suggested they buy her a boob job in Belgium to cheer her up.

Amanda tells the film how she first thought about getting a boob job when she was 11 and her mum, Alison, jetted off to Belgium to get her breasts enlarged.

She says: “When I was eleven my mum had her boobs done in Belgium and…I always thought, ‘when I’m older this is how I want to look, to have big boobs,’ and as I got older I just wanted them done. I saw the change in my mum - she was unhappy before, but to see her happier made me realise that I’d like that one day if mine didn’t naturally grow.”

Alison says she didn’t want her daughter to be unhappy with herself so she used the money from her divorce settlement to send her to Belgium for the operation.

Amanda, who went from a 32A to a 32D, says: “I woke up saw my mum and I looked straight down and I could see they were a lot bigger. I was like, ‘oh wow’, and I didn’t really care about the pain then. I could just see them. I was really happy, really happy.”

Alison says: “Until you’re in the situation and you’ve got a daughter that’s unhappy for any reason then you can’t judge anyone for what they do to make their kids happy.”

The film also follows Toni as she takes out a loan to boost her 34B boobs to a 34D to celebrate her 18th birthday - but even before she’s healed she’s thinking of going even bigger.

She says: “I feel ready in myself to have a boob job done. It’s no one else’s body. It’s my body. I feel ready in my mind and in myself. It’s only going to give me more confidence so why not?”

And Leanne’s 18th birthday wish is to become a glamour model – but will a bigger bust boost her career chances?

Her parents tell the programme that they don’t want her to have the surgery – but they’re still happy to pay half the cost.

Leanne says: “‘I don’t think that I’ve grown up too quick. I know exactly what I want and how I want it at this age.’

Monday 14 May 2007 10:00pm - 10:30pm on ITV1.