Girls struggling to cope with pressure to look sexy

Girls are being pressured to look sexy and to be sexually available, which is having a dramatic effect on them, according to a psychologist.

Dr Steve Biddulph, best-selling author of books on parenting, noted that an increasing number of girls are suffering mental health problems and he partly blames “overt sexualisation” of the “whole environment” and boys’ easy accessibility to pornography behind it, according to the Daily Express.

The statistics on depression, eating disorders, alcoholism, binge drinking, risky sex and self-harm among girls of this generation are going over the cliff, Dr Biddulph said in an exclusive interview.

He cited that boys admitted to London’s Tavistock Clinic for sexual abuse of sisters or girls at school are being found to have been addicted to online porn for years and that some of these boys are only 12 or 13.

According to him, sex is changing from a once private activity, with considerable emotional intensity, into a consumer activity with no meaning at all.

Dr Biddulph has uncovered evidence that in the UK the number of teenage girls with anxiety or depression has doubled in the past decade with two in 10 affected, twice the number of boys.

Research shows the number of girls deliberately cutting and injuring themselves has spiralled by 68 per cent in the past 12 months.

Children’s charities the NSPCC, YouthNet and Young Minds report a dramatic 167 per cent increase in the number of people getting in touch with their helplines about self-harm over the past two years. Some of the children are as young as 10.

Dr Biddulph wants the Government to end the use of sexual images in advertising because he believes that exposure to beautiful images of women on posters, magazines and in adverts can affect children who are very vulnerable.

Girls now automatically feel they are not good enough, he said.