The American Society of Plastic Surgeons has released a new study indicating little correlation between overall body satisfaction and the decision to have a cosmetic surgical procedure.

Most candidates for plastic surgery exhibit a level of body satisfaction termed "normal," and do not grapple with poor or low self-esteem. The desire is rather to meet what the profession calls the "look as good as you feel" test.

More than 52,000 test subjects, both male and female, and including a wide age range were asked if they felt attractive and if they were comfortable wearing a bathing suit.

The level of body satisfaction determined from the answers was identical in those individuals who were and were not considering a cosmetic procedure.

The exception to these findings were those people interested in undergoing liposuction, a sub-strata of the test group that did exhibit lower body satisfaction.

For this group, individuals with a higher body mass index and who were most interested in liposuction had the lowest indicated body satisfaction, a finding that may actually represent the misconception that liposuction is a procedure for weight loss when in reality its purpose is body contouring.

Forty-eight percent of the women in the test group said they were interested in plastic surgery with only 23 percent of men answering in the affirmative. Older respondents were less likely to be interested in the elective procedures.

In general Americans were found to be under the greatest degree of pressure to have a slender body with features that could be termed "ideal" or who found augmentations like breast implants desirable.

Approximately 11 million cosmetic procedures were performed in 2006 with women accounting for 90 percent of the procedures performed.