Girls are pressured by seeing influencers or models who have these ideal bodies on ads and social media outlets. These images don’t just affect adult women, but young girls as well. Why would we want our women to feel bad about themselves and feel the need to change the way they look just to feel accepted? Now the real question, how badly is the image of the ‘perfect’ body affecting girls?

Teens see models and many other people plastered on ads, who have the ideal body. Young girls seeing this ‘perfect’ body is bringing their self-esteem down. The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing has shown the evidence that more than 80 percent of 12 year old girls’ self-esteem is dropping. It continues to drop and doesn’t show signs of  improvement until they are at the age of 20. Young girls don’t want to be seen as overweight or having imperfections. Girls are mostly affected during their years in high school. They can either get picked on or compared to people who might have better physical features. This can and will lead to their self-esteem and confidence to drop.

Some girls think that they need plastic surgery and other cosmetic surgeries to improve their appearance. Women feel the need to look their absolute best at all times, especially when they know that there are images of the best looking women everywhere. At webmd.com, it is shown that 64 percent of people under the age 50 get plastic surgeries and 81 percent of those people have never had any work done before. Some people get plastic surgery done in hopes that it will improve their social lives. Others, want to improve imperfections that they might have for themselves.

The pressure that is put on these young girls is affecting their mental and physical health. Anemona Hartocollis wrote an article about the ways that women are affected. She also talks about how this negativity can risk a girls life. In the article, “City Unveils Campaign to Improve Girls’ Self-Esteem,” it talks about the negative body images leading to eating disorders, drinking, suicide, acting out, and bullying. These can affect a a persons life very severely.

These are some of the few ways that women can be affected by the ‘perfect’ body. Not only are young girls affected, but so are grown women. We need to focus more on body positivity and less on who has the ‘perfect’ body.