Women’s Body Confidence Is Now A ‘Critical Issue’ Worldwide
[Photo: Pexels]
Women’s lack of body confidence is, as we well know, a serious problem - but now a new report has named it a ‘critical issue’ worldwide.
The Dove Global Beauty and Confidence Report - given to Huffington Post - interviewed 10,500 women and girls from 13 countries and found that only 20% of women from the UK said they like the way they look.
Worldwide, more than two thirds of women (69%) and girls (65%) said that pressures from media and advertising to attain unrealistic beauty standards was the key force in their anxiety.
[Photo: Pexels]
More than 50% of women recognised that an ‘always on’ social media culture contributed to unattainable goals of perfection and negative body image.
Apparently, confidence is also affecting the lifestyles of women and girls - 85% of women and 79% of girls said that a low body esteem made them opt out of important life activities, such as participating in sport or seeing family.
[Photo: Pexels]
Seven in 10 girls with low body esteem say they won’t be assertive in their opinion or stick to their decision if they aren’t happy with the way they look.
A huge 87% of women said that they will stop themselves from eating or put their health at risk, while nearly eight in 10 of both women and girls feel some pressure to never make mistakes or show weakness.
[Photo: Flickr/grrrrl]
There is a bit of hope, however - 71% of women and 67% of girls interviewed said they want to call on the media to do a better job portraying women of diverse physical appearance, age, race, shape and size.
Scary stuff - but the scariest thing of all is that if you’re a woman reading this, you’re probably not surprised.
What do you think can be done to improve women’s confidence? Tweet us at @YahooStyleUK.
