Report on cosmetic surgery highlights teenage girls depressing lack of self esteem
A recent report in The Times has highlighted the shockingly low self esteem of Britain’ s teenage girls. Mother’s consider this a warning, because after reading this you will probably want to take your precious daughter and ship her off to a far corner of the world where plastic surgery isn’t on the Christmas list of 10 year olds
There seems to be a transitional period for girls around the age of ten when it would seem that they switch from being blissfully unaware of their bodies to longing to be thin.
It isn’t particularly breaking news that girls are obsessed with their weight and wish to conform to the norms of what our society considers attractive but now alongside eating disorders and constant dieting there is also plastic surgery to contend with.
The survey presented some very disturbing findings indeed. In the 11 to 16 ages group, 12 percent of the girls said they would consider weight-loss surgery and would even have something as drastic as a gastric band.
For 11 to 13 year old girls this figure was at 10 percent and then gradually as the age rises so does the percentage as girls become more exposed to images of skinny role models. 14 percent of 13 to 16 year olds would consider surgery and a whopping 50 percent of 16 – 21 year olds would consider going under the knife in a bid to conform.
It is disconcerting to think that children this young could feel so insecure in their bodies that they would consider having surgery that they undoubtedly don’t even know much about. With children as young as 14 now having nose jobs and breast implants (with their parents consent) to avoid being bullied at school is this really something we want to become as normal as walking to the corner shop?