How many teenage girls do you know that are actually happy with their weight? I doubt it's a lot and I can't help but blame the media for this.
Me, being not that skinny, seem to flick the pages of magazines, skipping them so I don’t feel a tad guilty, with the 'diet' help spreads, and the pages which constantly tell you to swap a yummy packet of crisps for a small handful of nuts and so on.
The amount of girls who are in fact pressured by the skinny celebrities of today, girls as young as 12 are all having weight issues, all worried about the puppy fat of which they haven’t lost yet, all of whom aren't happy and will never be, until they reach that serious size zero.
So where did this size zero trend start? I don’t know, but I’m sure what doesn’t help is when you go shopping, on the rails a size 6 seems to be the new 10.
But won't this make size 10s feel just a little bit bigger than what they are? Being two sizes up from the bottom one will probably make them feel a little bit big, right?
Won't most young people want to fit into one size below their own? I know a lot of people who would.
If the bigger people are made to shop in plus size shops then shouldn’t there be a minus size shop?
What gives these people who are trying to stop teenage girls from being so skinny the right to put such small clothes on rails when they are trying their best to help them?
Girls are obviously going to want to be as small as possible. So, okay, maybe some people can't help but be as skinny as there are. But the amounts of people who are trying their best and hardest to be as skinny as possible are in fact a bigger population.
This population is growing and growing, models, who are apparent role models, shouldn’t be as sickly skinny as they are.
They should be a healthy size - in fact, all different sizes, to show the generation of today, to show young girls, that they should accept their own weight, rather than be pushed under pressure.
Some girls may just be born with a gene which won't let them put on any weight, or a gene where the smallest bit of chocolate will cause them to put on a few pounds.
We can’t choose how we are born. But girls who are trying their hardest to get down to the lowest size possible (and are bragging about it to their friends) need to stop, because they have a choice.
Size zero is no hero. As many times, as you've heard before, the thin obsession isn't cool, or healthy.
Girls should be happy and confident with who they are, not be struggling to keep up an addictive habit.
Statistics show that seven million women are suffering from an eating disorder. Some of these women may not have this disorder because they want to be skinny, but I’m guessing that most do.
Magazines are too probably the thing we can blame most. The pressure of when they label skinny celebs 'fat', when they talk about why you shouldn’t eat nearly everything in the world, when all the celebrities on the front covers are super, super skinny. Will this ever help the girls? No, it won’t.
So I think the people of today should stop pressurizing young girls and let them be who they want to be, and not feel guilty about who they really are, not feel bad with the body they are born with and finally, feel good about their size. No matter what.
Ayla Eve Uzunhasan, aged 15, from Lewisham
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