Teenage Girls: Negative Body Image

The troubled girl doesn’t eat her dinner as she thinks it will make her fat. Her parents are forcing her to eat her dinner and she does but then excuses herself to go to the bathroom and she throws up. She doesn’t want to regain the weight that she lost because she has just been told a numerous times that she will never look good and never be in good to be in the so called “popular group”. But really, she looks like your average teenage girl experiencing changes with her body.

She’s insecure and she has body image issues.

You might wonder if others have had this experience, a survey result shows that 8 out of 10 of teenage girls do not feel satisfied with their body for numerous reasons, they might think that they’re fat, or think that they’re ugly. Almost all of the girls that weren’t satisfied with their body admitted that they want to lose weight.

A student from UWCSEA was interviewed about the issue and said that she deals with body image issues and she was teased a lot for being fat. She started losing weight during the summer and lost about 2 kg in 2 months. She is paranoid over what she eats and is scared of regaining the weight that she has lost. Even when she feels very hungry, she will just starve herself. She is scared that she’s going to develop a serious eating disorder but she says that she can’t help herself and she has to think about her weight.

You may be surprised to find that teen girls who have an extreme weight-loss behaviors (vomiting and using laxatives or diet pills) are less likely to eat fruits and vegetables and other healthy compared to non-dieters and dieters who are more likely to eat healthy food. This can be explained because dieters don’t eat at every meal so they might think that junk food will keep them full.

Teenage girls usually struggle with their self-esteem and body image when they begin puberty because it's a time when their body goes through many changes. These changes, combined with wanting to feel accepted by our friends, means that it is not easy to not want to compare ourselves to others. The problem with that is that not everyone grows and changes the same way or at the same time.

Dr Katrina, a specialist on eating disorders and body image issues says “More and more teens are dealing with low self-esteem and therefore also dealing with body image. I have dealt with this issue when i was younger and and it took me a while to get over it and feel good about my body. With help and support, hopefully every teen can go throughout the phase without doing any harm to their body.”

The media is full of girls that are skinny and good looking and 80% of teens say that the images of women on television, movies and fashion magazines make them feel insecure because they think that they are not good enough compared to celebrities. Even before girls are teenagers, some are already worrying about their figure. 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of becoming fat as they get older. This might be due to what they see or hear on TV, or maybe because they might have an older sister that might have influenced them into thinking like that.

How can you help someone with this issue and hopefully talk them out of it?

As you can probably already tell, there are a lot of teens who are dealing with this and might feel lost about it. If your child or someone you know and care about is experiencing this issue and is feeling insecure, there are many things you can do to help. There are plenty of great books and articles that could help you and give you advice. You could boost their self esteem by complimenting them and telling them that this isn’t the way to go. Know that you are not alone and someone is obviously experiencing the same thing.