To feel really sorry for teenagers today and the pressures and poor body image they face.

[HealthtAtEverySize]

I have always tried to teach my children to value personality and actual achievements over appearance, this thread is not about my children as such but it's about how teenagers are facing such pressure in terms of appearance.

Teenage girls are pressured to be slim yet since the emergence of the Kartrashians and other celebs like them to have figures that are completely unrealistic without surgery. Many of DD's friends go on diets etc to lose weight when they are all perfectly healthy and normal.

Teenage boys are shown men that have huge muscles and very little fat, this has led to huge problems with the rise of steroids.

The media for too long has been presenting unrealistic unattainable figures on young people and we as parents should do something. Teenagers face enough exam pressure without this adding to it.

As a body rights campaigner I think the media should promote health at every side and show a wider range of models in magazines. Its great to see pretty plus size models like Tess Holiday gaining attention. Kim kardashian is just as unattainable as the herione chic look yet she is called a hero for real women.

As a mother we should fight these standards so future children aren't made to feel bad for how they look.

#EffYourBeautyStandards

Or just turn off the television and chuck out magazines.

Tess Holliday is not a good role model, she is morbidly obese. I do think there should be models who are plus size and curvy but Tess Holliday is a heart attack waiting to happen.

You can't escape the media, although I try and keep patriarchal newspapers and media out of the house.

Yes Tess is on the larger side but she shows to many ladies who are of a larger way that they can be pretty too.

Genuinely, why nowadays?

What do you feel has changed?

"On the larger side"? Understatement of the century. She is dangerously obese. I don't think it helps people's case to complain about unreasonable beauty standards by suggesting someone like Tess Holliday is a role model

But Tess Holliday is just as bad a role model, just at the other end of the spectrum. If she didn't have a beautiful face there is no fucking way she would have been successful.

The media always have presented an idealised vision of beauty. Its up to parents to teach their children that it is not realistic that so and so looks like that all the time.

Tess isn't something to aspire to but can we focus on the message of the post instead of the model. Ashley Graham is of a normal size and a great role model.

Because I feel it is only getting worse at this time.

I actually think that given many children and teens ARE bigger, it gives weight (pardon the pun) to their self worth.

I was a fat teenager (there were reasons, don't flame me) and it wasn't common then. I couldn't get clothes to fit especially for nights out. Now, it's different. I just don't see tortured teenagers in the same way!

Kate But the media should show bigger models and celebs as we are bigger.

But being big isn't part of the fame and fortune lifestyle: it's like saying that most people don't have perfect Simon Cowell-like teeth, so models and celebs should keep their own off white slightly crooked teeth.

Media should represent real men and women. Teens are bombarded with messages of the ideal body. Fit men stand outside Hollister in the male. Skinny dummy models in shops.

I agree. I am more concerned about filters than Photoshop. People have imperfections like freckles and their skin isn't supposed to look like it's a plastic mask.
#nofilter should be the default setting for photos and life in general.

It was ever thus, though, OP.

I'm (very genuinely, not trying to be difficult) struggling to see what you've decided is different about today.

As a rule, younger people tend to be more body conscious and more interested in their appearance than older people. That's pretty consistent throughout history (think Scarlett O'Hara's distress at having to wear a black mourning dress when she was only in her teens.)

bump

Tess Holiday is too big to be a role model.

YY to variety! A lot of people assume thin = healthy but healthy bodies can range from Anna Kournikova to Venus Williams. (I'm using women in the same sport for a reason)

I think parents are their children's biggest role models.

Over the years, I've lost count of how many teenage girls I've heard saying they don't want to get fat like their Mums.

Healthy body images, healthy eating and a healthy amount of exercise starts at home.

And as much as some people would like to pass that responsibility onto pop stars/film stars/reality tv stars etc, I really do think parents need to model healthy behaviour from very early on in their kid's lives.

I mean before the kids are even old enough to notice these strangers in the media.

Oh, and do fuck off with the 'real woman' shite.

Completely agree Worra but I feel at teenage years celebrity and what girl has the best bikini body or what boy has the biggest arms seems to become very important even to teens with good healthy parents as role models.

ArmySal No I will not Real Woman are those who are not on reality tv shows have jobs families etc, it doesn't mean a certain size.

It's always been important though OP, ever since silent movie stars.

But the most important thing imo is to equip your kids with the mental strength to deal with it, and to model what healthy eating looks like from a very early age.

Now that is not easy for many parents, given that something like 64% of UK adults are overweight/obese.

But how can parents tell their kids they shouldn't be dieting or worrying about their image, if they've grown up in a home with yo-yo dieters for example? Or in a home where their parents will sit and eat an entire pack of biscuits/tin of chocolates in one hit?

I really believe the Kardashians et al are not the main problem when it comes to teens worrying about their bodies.

All women are real women, unless they're cut out of cardboard or made out of lego

Tess Holliday is possibly one of the worst suggestions for a body image role model I have ever heard of.

If she continues to remain that size her health will significantly suffer and she is likely to die a premature death.

'It was ever thus' I think sums it up pretty well. Ditto for what worra said. I can't imagine there was ever a time that teenaged girls wanted to end up looking like their mums. My late mum wasn't fat, but I'm ashamed to say that I remember being quite decided as a young teenager that I would not look like her when I grew up.

I think porn worries me more than anything in the mainstream media.