Jayne Dowle: Guiding girls away from anxiety about their bodies

On paper and in comparison, “body confidence” sounds like a nebulous concept. By its very nature, it’s self-obsessive. In reality, as Girl Guide leaders will know only too well, it’s a difficult and often disturbing issue. A recent Girlguiding survey found that an overwhelming 87 per cent of young girls think they are judged more on looks than ability. And one in four girls aged between 11 and 21 said that they would consider cosmetic surgery because they are unhappy with their appearance.

Damning evidence that poor self-esteem can ruin young lives. It stifles ambition, and causes anxiety and depression. And when keeping up appearances becomes too much to bear, it can result in an outcome only too tragic.

To achieve this new “Free Being Me” badge, girls will learn to take pride in their bodies whatever their shape or size. For instance, they will be taught about the airbrushing tricks advertisers pull to promote the “perfect” body and examine pictures of celebrities with unattainable figures. It’s being devised in conjunction with the very worthwhile Dove Self Esteem project, which uses ordinary women to advertise its products.

If you still think it sounds far-fetched, listen to this. My eight-year-old daughter came home from school the other day with a tale to make your hair stand on end. Her classmate had turned up with a full-body spray tan and false eyelashes. To primary school. The girl’s mother, apparently, was totally complicit in this and had actually administered the tan and lashes herself. When our daughters are growing up in a society which accepts this kind of thing as normal, they need all the help they can get.

I’ve already lost count of the conversations I’ve had with our Lizzie about her body. She’s attended dancing lessons since she was three. so her build is lithe and strong. She can stand on her hands and do somersaults on the trampoline. Yet she thinks she is “fat”. There’s more fat on a chip, but she won’t be convinced.

It’s certainly not me sending her this negative message. Almost every meal-time we talk about the importance of a balanced diet, the need for protein, vitamins and carbohydrates. It’s not her dancing friends, who tuck into steak and chips and sausage sandwiches like a bunch of truckers. It’s not her older brother either, who plays football and is proud of his muscular legs and broad shoulders. It’s other girls. Girls at school who turn up in false tan and false eyelashes. Girls at school who will, like one in five Brownies, have already been on a diet. Girls who are fed the myth of perfection by over-anxious mothers who are probably on a constant diet themselves. Girls who only have one sport: putting down other girls.

The problem is that girls like this will never go to Brownies or Guides. The idea of working hard to achieve anything, never mind a badge, is anathema to them. They won’t even bother to care for their nails when a stick-on manicure can do the job in seconds. It’s all very well the guiding movement trying to raise awareness. I say all power to them. It’s how to reach all those other girls that’s the problem. Parents – if they are willing and not entirely narcissistic themselves – have a role to play here, obviously. And so do teachers. Now I recognise that the teaching profession has a list of responsibilities far more pressing than policing the over-use of self-tan in the classroom. Still, I’d like to see a honest approach to body image in schools. When eight-year-olds are tottering across the playground looking as if they are on their way to a nightclub, surely something has to be said? I’d urge those in charge of curriculum development to follow the lead set by the guiding movement. Bring body confidence and self-esteem right to the forefront of sex education and ethics sessions.

It would be a step in a more positive direction at least. We’ve certainly come a long way since I was eight, when my view of the world was coloured mostly by John Craven’s Newsround and Enid Blyton. Today, we talk openly with our children about things our mothers and grandmothers wouldn’t have discussed until they were married. And maybe not even then. Still, for all our openness and tolerance and acceptance, we’re still guilty of shirking an issue that is literally staring us in the face.

I hope our Lizzie grows up to be proud of more than her pie and peas. I hope too that she grows up proud of the body she was born with, whether she gets a badge for it or not.