One in six young girls feel ashamed of body

In the largest UK-wide annual survey of young girls’ views, the Girlguiding Girls’ Attitudes research has found that one in six seven- to ten-year-olds feel ashamed of their body. The survey also revealed that 36% of the young girls questioned say that outside influences and other people make them feel like their most important quality is the way they look.

It is an alarming statistic that prompts a lot of thought about the society in which we live and have created for our young people. Perhaps the most frightening part of the survey is that the problem is only growing: almost 40% of girls aged seven to 21 do not feel happy with how they look in 2016, compared with 27% in 2011.

Many parents have expressed their fear about the survey on social media, with one mother on Twitter saying she is “furiously trying to combat” her daughter’s body insecurity “before it escalates further”. Parents have every reason to be worried about this as the number of hospital admissions across the UK for teenagers with eating disorders has more than doubled since 2011 and around 25% of young people are estimated to self-harm at least once, although figures are expected to be greater than this estimate.

Unfortunately, we have to say that we’re not surprised about these figures. With the airbrushed, unhealthy and materialistic world created by the media, the fashion executives and glossy magazines, is it really so hard to understand why so many young girls feel this way?

There is something we can do, though. We can educate out children and we can campaign and boycott unrealistic standards.That way, we communicate the message that no more will we stand for the promotion of sickeningly unrealistic expectations placed on our girls before they’re even born.