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Tuesday, 09 Oct 2007, 06:15 |
77 Percent of Girls Consider Themselves Ugly
Most young American and British girls are not feeling happy with their body image. The latest research showed that most of them are negatively influenced by advertisements.
According to international study commissioned by Dove, by the age 12 most girls have seen around 77,500 ads. Researchers questioned 2,000 girls from the UK and the US aged between 10 and 14 and found out that as much as 77 percent of them described themselves in negative terms. Many said they consider themselves ugly, fat and upset when comparing themselves with attractive images shown in advertisements.
The study found the link between the prevalence of beautiful images in media and increasing number of teenagers having low self-esteem. One 14-year-old girl wrote that images in magazines make her feel upset because she knows she could never be that beautiful.
Dr Susie Orbach, a psychotherapist and the author of Time to Talk says that the effect of media images can be crucial to vulnerable psychic of young girls who are "bombarded by millions of images of digitally manipulated, airbrushed beauty every day".
During a study girls were asked to keep a diary were they recorded all the beauty images seen over three days and write down their thoughts.
The low-self-esteem is closely connected to mental health problems. And the fact that almost 90 percent of all girls were feeling depressed about their appearance and 76 percent of them having eating disorders as a way to handle negative emotions towards themselves is alarming.
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Aug 21, 2008 03:10 AM » posted by: Jessica
I'm a bit skeptical about this study and how the figures were calculated. If a girl mentioned there were one or two things she didn't like about her looks, did this mean she thought of herself as absolutely hideous? If she sometimes skipped dessert to lose weight, does this mean she has an eating disorder?
As for the insecurities of adolescent girls, feeling self conscious about yourself is part of growing up. (boys swagger and brag to cover up their self consciousness, while girls maybe show their anxieties more openly). Growing up is also learning to accept that there is always going to be someone out there who is smarter, more talented, richer, or, yes, prettier than you are. Are we really doing girls any favours by pretending that this is not the case?
Jul 23, 2008 12:28 PM » posted by: Reemus the Deemus
"Most young American and British girls are not feeling happy with their body image."
Not surprised. Most young British women I see are overweight. Try eating less and exercising. If this doesn't fit with your "nobody tells me what to do" attitude stop the complaining FATTY! One day you'll learn that as much as you want to, you can't have it both ways.
May 23, 2008 12:30 PM » posted by:
rhondaspok
I tell my two teenage daughters to look closely at the photos on the magazine covers. I took a year of photography classes and they are able to see how photos are easily manipulated by any photoshop program. I took a photo of my boyfriend and reduced the size of his ears, and filled in a small gap in his tooth. No one noticed anything different until I told them. My point is, I tell my kids the truth. The pictures you see are FAKE as can be. Don't worry so much about how "I can never look like that! becuz you know what? they don't look like that either! Research has also shown that if only one male says to a young girl you look great! she will believe it, and feel better about herself. Sad? yes, but if it works I say go for it.
Maybe I'll take a sharpie pen and buy a couple of cosmo or vougue mags and black out one or two teeth on those girls, lol. Then they would be slightly more realistic. And kudos to Jamie Lee Curtis who accepts her flaws as being beutifully human. I wish we as a society could stop worrying so much about pleasing others and be true to ourselves.
Feb 27, 2008 06:54 PM » posted by:
chsorioles2008
screw the statistics! ALL people are beautiful in their own way...either inside or out. And Ari is right, why cant people stop being assholes. maybe young girls wouldnt feel like that if people would stop putting them down!
Nov 29, 2007 06:40 PM » posted by: ari
you know what, thats not a very nice thing to say. and you are the reason why young girls have body image issues. Screw you!
Oct 09, 2007 06:43 AM » posted by: Women-Always-Right
Still, to be a woman is better than to be a monkey-like man! All men remind monkeys to me, no matter what they say - if a lady seems ugly - it means they have to wear eye-glasses!
Oct 09, 2007 06:32 AM » posted by:
grumbler
77 Percent of Girls Consider Themselves Ugly and 76 percent of them are absolutely right as for what they think about themselves
