The number affected by body image issues continues to rise in adolescence. At this age, negative attitudes about the body can continue to be conveyed in the relatively benign form of peer pressure. As children we want to fit in, and what our friends think and do has a considerable effect on what we think and do. The attitudes of our peers, therefore, have considerable influence on our attitudes towards ourselves. Studies show that both adolescent boys and girls report feeling pressure to alter their looks, with up to 68% identifying friends' comments as the source of this pressure.
Messaging in older schoolchildren can also assume malign form. Bullying typically begins around the age of ten - continuing into adolescence - with children who are overweight more likely to be targeted. Over half of young people have experienced appearance-based bullying, with half of those describing themselves as anxious, thirty percent as depressed.
The onset of puberty further exacerbates anxieties. Differences begin to emerge when some adolescents turn up to puberty later than their peers. And, with not every adolescent developing in the same way, some failing to achieve societal ideals, further differences emerge. At puberty, with the awakening of sexuality, sensitivities to our attractiveness take on vital import. The emergence of difference at this age, therefore, increases already existing issues.
It is into this hormonal mix that an even more aggravating factor is introduced when - around this age - many teenagers are gifted their first mobile phone and they enter the world of social media.