It seems I’m all about the studies lately, and I’ve got a fairly disturbing one that inspired this post.  According to Girlguiding UK:

Girls as young as seven would like to change something about their appearance and half of 16 to 21-year-olds would consider surgery to achieve their perfect body, a study has revealed. 

 The research… shows that 95 per cent of 16 to 21-year-olds would change their bodies, with 33 per cent saying they wanted to be thinner and around a quarter of 16 to 21-year-olds said they would consider resorting to cosmetic surgery. 

 All right, who’s to blame?

I would like to blame it all on magazines and models and such, what with photoshopped pictures of bodies that simply do not exist in nature.

But, it seems to me that perhaps we should be looking more at mothers.  Now, I’m the last one to sit and point and blame moms for everything that is wrong with their child.  But I happen to think that a girl’s biggest influence is not some photo in a magazine, but her mother. 

And how many mothers look in the mirror and constantly bemoan their flaws?  They may not be meaning to pass on such phobias to their daughters, but I can’t help thinking that if young women hear nothing but negativity coming out of their mothers’ mouths, they will pick up on it and transfer that dissatisfaction onto themselves.

It’s funny because I definitely do not have a perfect figure by any stretch of the imagination, but I have no sense of self-loathing when I see my reflection in the mirror like so many women I know.  Even my very skinny friends will complain about their “big butts” or the fact that their waist isn’t perfect, even though they have perfectly lovely figures.

Perhaps it’s time we do look to ourselves on this one.