The teenage years of any child are fraught with many difficulties: new schools, challenging exams and puberty are just a few. However, the most difficult is appearance. Teenagers of the modern day feel oppressed by their body image and how they are seen by others. A survey of 2,000 girls for bliss magazines found 6/10 girls would be much happier in life if they lost weight another 7/10 girls said they feel insecure when at school and home. These are some seriously frightening statistics and the challenge they highlight must be discussed openly and honestly.

Why do some teens feel unhappy in their bodies? Who has influenced them to feel and act like this? THE MEDIA! Magazines, television and adverts are all as manipulative as each other. These mind controlling propaganda outlets promote how a perfect body should look and what a body shouldn’t look like. The media has brainwashed teenagers to thinking that their body or appearance isn’t good enough. I asked a 9 year old boy who loves social media sites “what would you like to look like in a few years time? He replied ” I want to look like the guy in my sister’s magazines” I then asked what does he look like?” he said ” He has big muscles and is really tall also has white teeth, and when I am older I want to be just like him and the way he looks” I then asked a 15 year old girl and she said “I want to be pretty and skinny. I was reading one of my favourite magazines and it says women who weigh more don’t tend to find love compared with women who are skinnier” I was astonished by what these teenagers told me and how they actually feel about the way they look, why must teenagers feel like this? It is not right for them to have this kind of mind set. We need to encourage them to think that the way they look is perfectly fine; it shouldn’t be changed for anyone.

Moreover, being insecure about the body isn’t the only thing that worries me, the colour of our skin is becoming a major issue. It doesn’t matter what the colour of our skin is, black, white or mixed raced; we are all equal. We need to tell people that having dark skin or being to pale isn’t a problem at all.

I was at my local youth club playing games with a couple of my friends I was distracted by a group of kids laughing and calling a boy names because he’s skin was dark automatically I became  so angry and confused at the same time all I could think of was why? What’s so funny about having darker skin? He is a human! It is shocking  that people will try and completely change their whole appearance A hair and beauty shop sells a product for bleaching people skins to make their skin seem lighter. In fact 43% of black people purchase an item every week. I asked one of the customers who buys these types of products often, “why is it that you buy such these things”? She gave me no response immediately I knew that this women who didn’t respond to my question didn’t feel happy about the colour of her skin and her appearance to others. According to E Square magazines which is published in Nigeria 53% of women in Abuja say they don’t like the colour of their skin and wish to change how they look. The majority of the women want to look like the figures in magazines, billboards, adverts and television. However, do they know some of them women are photoshopped? The media have deceived us to believe that looking like these figures is the only way.

We must safeguard our children’s mental health and insecurities. If your body doesn’t look like the celebs in magazines or on television then it doesn’t mean your body isn’t beautiful. Our bodies are good enough in any shape or form, let’s not tease or minimize someone for what they look like. We must be supportive if someone feels upset. If we can all try and do these things then I am certain that people will start feeling comfortable in the way they look and the media would eventually accept that fact that nobody has “The Perfect Body”.