As parents, what we want most for our children without a doubt, is for them to be happy and healthy.
But now a worrying new report has found that young girls are, in fact, becoming more unhappy with life and with themselves.
The Children’s Society’s annual report in the UK showed that there had been a sharp rise in unhappiness among 10-15-year-old girls and teenagers in the last five years, with a heartbreaking 14% saying they are unhappy with their lives as a whole, and 34% with their appearance.
The charity’s annual Good Childhood Report, now in its 11th year, draws its findings on teenagers’ happiness from the Understanding Society Survey which gathers data on 40,000 households across the UK.
This year, a record number of girls told the researchers they felt “ugly” or “worthless.”
Children’s Society as well as researchers from the University of York examined responses on the wellbeing of 10 to 15-year-olds, and found that between 2009-10 and 2013-14 on average 11% of both boys and girls said they were unhappy. However, when they looked at numbers from 2013-14, they showed that the proportion of girls saying they were unhappy had risen to 14%.
The study highlighted the growing pressure of social media and suggested that a tough economic climate had created a more “serious” generation of young people.
This is what Lucy Capron from the Children’s Society told BBC Radio 5 Live:
“This isn’t something which can be explained away by hormones or just the natural course of growing up, actually this is something that we need to take seriously and we need to address.”
These are heartbreaking numbers, no doubt.
Are YOU the parent of a young girl? How do you think popular culture and society with all it’s pressure are affecting their mental health and well-being?
