Young Girls Speak the Truth About Body Image [Video]
Kids say the darndest things—and in many instances, they’re also truthful. In this new video from SheKnows Media’s Hatch program, young girls attend a workshop on body image and talk openly about how they—and their friends—have spoken about the way they look.
“You can pick out all of your flaws, and it’s like, society does that as well for you,” said one preteen girl in the Hatch video. “There’s a picture of me, and we’re all sucking in, even though we’re in the third or fourth grade. It looks ridiculous,” added another. A third girl shared an anecdote about attendees of a sixth grade birthday party weighing themselves. “That’s kind of scary,” she said.
But young girls can be so self-conscious, tearing themselves—and each other—apart regularly. You may recall the sad-but-true scene in Mean Girls, when Cady Heron (played by Lindsay Lohan) learns one of the tenets of girl code: You must criticize your own looks in front of your friends. “I used think there was just fat or skinny, but apparently there are a lot of things that can be wrong on your body,” said Heron while she watched her three “friends” criticize their body parts in the mirror. This is exactly the type of behavior SheKnows hopes to prevent at an early age.
The workshop featured another discussion group with elementary school-aged girls. “It’s really sad that they think whatever they look like is not good enough for them,” one said. The girls also drew self-portraits to illustrate what they loved about their bodies—the exact opposite of what was depicted in Mean Girls. “Rarely do friends come together to say, wow, we just look dashing,” said one participant, acknowledging the reality of group body-hating sessions.
According to the January 2015 Body Image Report by Common Sense Media, an estimated 1.3 million adolescent girls in the US have anorexia, and girls as young as the age of 5 are dissatisfied with the way they look. “Other people might think you’re prettier than you think you are. You shouldn’t be doubting yourself,” says one girl at the end of the video, matter-of-factly. It makes you hope deeply that she keeps that resolve and confidence for the rest of her life. One single workshop isn’t going to change everything—but maybe, just maybe, these girls will help make big strides in society’s perspective on body image and confidence as they get older.
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