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.

Stress Students Face

When you walk in the middle school halls, you will see different types of students from different grades that all have different expressions. Some look relieved, some look relaxed, some have no apparent emotions and some look stressed. They might be stressed for different reasons, some might be stressed due to homework and others could be nervous because of an upcoming test. Students all have to deal with stress and they all deal with it in a different way.

You might wonder what students are thinking when they feel this way. On an ordinary Monday morning, two eighth graders were talking to each other. “OMG, I’m so not looking forward for the math test today!” says one of the girls who was frantically shuffling through her papers, touching her hair rigourously. Her friend who also looked distraught said “ I have a strong feeling that i’m going to fail the test. I seriously don’t understand math at all.” As she was talking, she was scrolling through her notes and tapping her pencil anxiously on her messy notebook, trying to understand what she was reading.

The two girls later go to their mentor class for mentor time. After a pleasant 40 minutes, they slowly went to math class where their math teacher is patiently waiting for them to take the test. The two girls both have sweat rolling down their face and have a distressed look as they enter the room. The teacher waits for all the students to arrive, and once they all arrive he hands out the tests and wishes them good luck. Once the two girls both have their test, they look at each other. One tries to mouth out the word “help” while the other ignores her. They focus on the questions and skip the ones that they don’t understand. Once they finish the test they quietly leave the classroom. “How did you do on the test? I personally found it so difficult like I skipped so many questions!” the other replies and blurts out, “Ugh don’t even get me started on it! But now I’m really scared and stressed for the results”. They both have a somewhat relieved look.

A few days later they enter their math class and get their test back. The two girls did quite poorly and they both have to do a retest. We can see the sad look in their eyes as they hear the bad news. And the cycle starts again, they stress out. Will they do better when they take the retest and have more time to study? or will they do as badly?

In conclusion, stress does affect the way you work and the less you stress, the better you will do

Being A Teenager

In middle school students begin to care about friends more and their reputation is very important to them, but in high school the relationships with their friends is critical and they often struggle to understand who they are and where they fit in.

Being a teen is rough but exciting at the same time, there are its ups and downs. Teens need a good balance with their studies and their social life. Some teenagers often forget that going to school is for studying and not only to see their friends. But the teenagers that don’t have friends or very little of them feel lonely and excluded which often leads to depression. Teenagers have to face obstacles such as finding the wrong friends or backstabbers before finding their true ones, but some naturally prefer to be alone.

All teenagers are different, some are smart, some are dumb, some are sporty and some are less but they are never alone. Some are none of these and they are the ones that find it the hardest to fit in maybe because they think that they are different or maybe they think that nobody feels the same way. The teens that are the most “different” are the ones that are the most vulnerable and the most likely to be victims of bullying or being teased. The ones that are bullied end up feeling insecure and lose their self-esteem. In the US, at least 160,000 children skip school due to bullying.

An anonymous 8th grader in the Lycee Francais de Singapour liked to wear tight clothes but she was bullied and teased for being chubby. As a result, she started cutting herself but she fortunately found a friend that convinced her to stop. She was asked about how she felt about this and she replied “Girls who made me feel insecure about myself can just continue teasing me but to be honest it would be a waste of their time.” In conclusion, school is rough but with the right attitude everyone makes through it.