| Beginning at a young age, girls have a desire
to be beautiful.
“You’re learning who you are. You’re worrying
about self-esteem issues, how you look,” 17-year-old
For some girls, the focus is on weight – the thinner,
“The media just sort of drills it in, that this is
the ideal body image, and you sort of feel the need to live
up to that expectation,” says Robin, 16.
Friends Robin, Ginny and Halle agreed to an experiment designed
to test their self-perception. Each was given a sheet of paper
lined with silhouettes of various body images. They were asked
to circle the image they felt best matched their own body.
After calculating their weight and height, each girl then
circled an image that actually matched those numbers. The
result turned out to be a thinner image than the one they
originally chose. Why did the teens think they were heavier
than they actually were?
“Everybody’s harder on themselves than they should
be,” says Halle, 17.
Using a more sophisticated test, a study in the American
Journal of Health and Behavior showed similar results.
The girls in the study viewed themselves an average of 11
pounds heavier than they wanted to be. In reality, they were
only 3 pounds over their target weight.
They all wanted to be skinnier, and experts say society is
mostly to blame for that perception.
“[They get the message that], ‘This is who you
should be, and this is what you should look like, this is
the ideal,’ and the ideal isn’t even real,”
says psychologist Dr. Anne Moore, program director for the
Atlanta Center for Eating Disorders.
Robin, Ginny and Halle each say they have a pretty healthy
self-image but recognize the potential danger for teens who
“If you have a really distorted body image, a lot of
times you can start hurting yourself in totally unhealthy
ways – crazy diets and anorexia and bulimia, or if you’re
a guy, over-exercising your muscles,” Halle says.
The experts agree. They say parents can help counter a negative
self-image by teaching their children, especially
girls who are sometimes more vulnerable, how to focus
on the things that are really important.
“[By] recognizing that she’s intelligent, recognizing
that she’s got a lot of spunk, recognizing that she’s
funny, that she’s got a great sense of humor. All of
those things are much more important than what somebody looks
like,” Dr. Moore says.