Dishonest images feed growth of anorexia

Girls are told early their bodies aren’t good enough - they need continual upgrade and enhancement. A recent survey found a quarter of Australian teenage girls would get plastic surgery if they could - and 2 per cent already had. The study of 4,000 girls aged 11 to 18, found most were unhappy with their bodies.

Botox is now being pitched to young women as being a “preventative” against wrinkles. Seventeen 17-year-old girls have been reported as having the treatment in Australia. More and more teenage girls are having breast implants - even though recent British research shows women with breast implants commit suicide in larger numbers. Clearly, having your breast tissue split open and saline or silicone implants stuffed into them is not the key to happiness for most women.

But, sadly, too many girls now think fake women are better than the real thing. They are aspiring to unattainable, sexualised, digitally enhanced images of models and celebrities - women airbrushed beyond recognition.

A young writer and artist in her mid-20’s, who contributed to Faking It, has suffered anorexia for eight years. Catherine writes about “feeling the pressure of constant idealisation of “size-zero” women and perfectly airbrushed advertising images.

“I am working on my recovery, but constant newspaper and magazine articles blasting the horrors of sugar and fat and the ‘epidemic’ of obesity are certainly not encouraging,” she says. “I feel it’s essential that not only girls, but women, are able to identify the real values we should nurture and the deeply dishonest images and ideas we are fed.”

I can’t think of a better goal for Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness Week.