Boarding Schools for Girls

A group of high school girls in Rochester, Minnesota, want their peers to stop "body bashing" and learn to appreciate the way they look. With that in mind, the group has joined a decade-old effort entitled "GO GIRLS!"

"GO GIRLS! is a 12-week curriculum developed in 1998 by the National Eating Disorders Association as a tool to prevent eating disorders among girls," the Post-Bulletin newspaper reported. "The curriculum focuses on body image issues and self-esteem, the effect media has on body image and awareness of eating disorders and prevention."

The GO GIRLS! program began in 1999 as a pilot project at Minnesota's Red Wing High School, where it continues to this day.

Labels: self-esteem, body image, peer_pressure

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Two Ohio Girl Scouts, Raychel Santo and Kylie Bushroe, have created a program aimed at helping preteens develop healthy self-esteem and resist peer pressure and other unhealthy influences that can lead to problems such as depression and eating disorders. Dayton Daily News writer Brittney Hunn featured the two scouts in a June 11 article:

Having first-hand experience of junior high and high school pressures such as violence, eating disorders, cliques and depression, [Santo and Bushroe] came up with an idea to spread the word of self awareness.

The Scouts have put together a workshop promoting girls to "Be Youtiful" in efforts to gain a Gold Award, the highest achievement a 15- to 17-year-old Girl Scout can earn. The workshop is meant to prevent low self-esteem in preteen girls from sixth to eighth grade.

Self-esteem issues in teen girls are very common. How teens feel about themselves is reflected in their actions. If they have high self-esteem, they tend to act independently, assume responsibility, attempt new tasks and can handle different emotions. Those who have low self-esteem tend to avoid new things, put down their talents, blame others for shortcomings and are easily influenced, according to the Child Development Institute.

The girls' first workshop was scheduled for June 14 at the Bellbrook SugarCreek Community Center in Dayton, Ohio.

Labels: self-esteem, peer_pressure, ohio

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A study co-sponsored by the British version of the Girl Scouts and the United Kingdom's Mental Health Foundation has found that teenage girls are having a hard time resisting social pressures surrounding materialism and sexuality.

As described by Alexandra Topping in the July 14 edition of The Guardian newspaper, the report (titled A Generation Under Stress?) revealed the following facts about the emotional state of British teen girls:

• Forty percent of girls who were surveyed said they felt worse about themselves after looking at pictures of models, pop stars, and actresses in magazines.
• Some teens said they also felt pressure from such publications to be thin, take drugs, and even have plastic surgery.
• Many were self-conscious about their appearance and weight, and described being sexually pressured by boys at school or feeling obliged to wear clothes that made them look older.

The findings were based upon information provided by hundreds of teen girls who participated in online survey and eight focus groups.

Tracey Murray of Girlguiding UK told Topping that young girls believe that the pressures on them are increasing, as are the social penalties to be paid by those who refuse to conform. "Young girls today often feel there is a growing checklist of ideals they have to adhere to," Murray said. "If they don't they often feel singled out and vulnerable to bullying."

Noting the number of young girls who consider plastic surgery or see self-harming behaviors as "normal," the chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation told The Guardian that today's adults are responsible for alleviating the pressures that are weighing down modern adolescents.

"Girls and young women are being forced to grow up at an unnatural pace in the society that we, as adults, have created and it's damaging their emotional wellbeing," McCulloch said. "We have a responsibility to put this right - we must tackle head-on the difficulties that the younger generation are facing."

Labels: sex, influences, peer_pressure

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