The Impact of Media on Teen Self-Esteem and Body Image

What is Beauty To Teen Girls?

This is one of my favorite videos on YouTube about the pressure advertising media places on girls about what defines beauty.  

Kudos to Dove for their campaign to get girls and women to understand that beauty is inner, and we should all embrace the beautiful bodies we have. The constant bombardment of ultra-thin, sexy, gorgeous models only serves to destroy a young girl’s self-esteem because they know they'll never look that good.  It also gives them a distorted view of body image.

The video ends with this message:  "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does."

My 12 year old told me today that 2 out of every 5 girls aged fourteen are dieting.  It was a great chance for us to talk about the unrealistic body images that advertising promotes.  We talked about dieting and why it's so bad for your body. We also talked about healthy eating and what that looked like.  It was a great conversation.

Talk to your daughter about what true beauty is.  Speak up because she's already hearing from advertising, social media and friends.

It's really important she hears from you.  

Tell her she's beautiful just because of who she is.