Body image for young women

        There are many reasons that young girls struggle with self esteem and body image problems. When describing the factors that influence them nowadays, WebMD divides them into about three categories of Media's impact, parent involvement, and sports as a good or bad influence. The article posted is titled "Girls and Body Image: Media's effect, How Parent's can help", the directness of the article is very helpful because it not only addresses what the media does wrong in society, but also what we as parents can do (figuratively speaking of course). 
            The author is not afraid of being very direct and I appreciate her bluntness in identifying the causes for the rise in focus on self appearance. Yes we can continue to just blame the media and "Barbie" dolls that make girls feel like this is what they should aspire to, but we must also acknowledge that it comes from the people in our families. Moms, the article suggests, "too often openly obsess about their own weight", this is misleading to girls  who probably may only hear their mothers complain about real things, or things of relative significance. If the maternal figure is merely making small talk or being over critical of her own body, then the point is misconstrued and these values are over emphasized in the mind of the young woman. Also important, if not more so, is the role of the father or older brother whom, when the girl sees that they "make clear their preference for thinner women" may feel inferior because they may not fit the model. Speaking of models, the models of happy, successful, beautiful women in America are always thin. For an impressionable girl, this can be very compelling for reasons to have that body. For you to be smart, successful, put-together, happy, and beautiful, one need to simply have unrealistic proportions and eat like a bird.
          One statistic that really shocked me was that "the average teen girl gets about 150 minutes of media exposure daily and only about 10 minutes of parental interaction" (Renee Hobbs). So shouldn't that conflict with the above assertion that a lot of self image comes from parents? However, the point of the article is that instead of parents banning all the barbies and hiding magazines from girls, they can talk about the means of physical representation. Girls will feel less dissatisfied with their bodies if their parents engage them in discussions and learn where the thought process of their daughters resides. If they can discern how their daughter views a celebrity, then they can understand where it is that the girl needs the most positive encouragement and assurance that she is beautiful and healthy is more enviable than starvation.
http://www.webmd.com/healthy-beauty/features/helping-girls-with-body-image