"We shouldn't all look airbrushed and edited" - Yorkshire teenage girls' pressures from filters and AI revealed

Some 37 per cent of girls aged 11-16 questioned by Girlguiding said they have been on a diet, with over a quarter of girls (28 per cent) saying they would consider cosmetic changes to their appearance.

Over half (61 per cent) of 11–16-year-old girls questioned for the charity’s Girls Attitudes Survey said they’d like to lose weight.

The charity has pointed at the use of online filters as a cause of girls’ negative attitudes towards their appearances.

In the last year, 44 per cent of girls and young women aged 11-21 said they’ve seen images that made them feel insecure, and over half 54 per cent said they wished they looked like they do with the filters online. More than 1 in 3 (36 per cent) said they feel pressure to use filters when posting online.

One 17-year-old girl, Lucy, from Pontefract, said: “With AI, new filters and editing software, there’s no limits. Young people are really susceptible to comparing themselves, they’ll see an idealised version and start comparing.

“I know that some people won’t change how they look drastically, but they will alter a little blemish, or make their eyebrows or eyelashes look different.

“Over half of girls say they wish they look like how they do with filters, so it’s almost shaping how they view themselves offline.

“Online, I see a lot of adverts for things like weight loss programmes and lip filler, and they’re so readily available. It’s fairly easy for girls to find somewhere.”

Lucy said that unfollowing influencers on social media who used editing software had helped her increase her own confidence levels.

“I stopped looking at that content,” she said. “That really helped me get perspective on how normal people looked. We shouldn’t all look airbrushed and edited.”

The charity is now calling for the newly elected Government to make it a requirement for advertisers, including influencers, to make it clear when filters, editing software or artificial intelligence have been used to change or create an image.