#welshteens: My Perfect Body

The teenage years - some of the toughest we face,

with stress at school, at home and among our peers.

I think there's a lot of pressure when you're a teenager,

because you've got to choose your GCSEs.

Then, if you want to go on to do A-levels,

or if you want to go to college,

then, if you want to go to university,

there's so much you have to decide in two or three years.

It's a time when we become aware of our body image -

our looks, our hair, our shape,

and if we're not happy with what we've got, problems can kick in.

Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.

And the number of teens hospitalised in Wales due to anorexia

has almost doubled in five years.

I didn't want to leave the house. I just thought everyone hated me.

But now there is a new kid on the block - social media.

This is the first generation that have grown up completely

surrounded by and immersed by digital technology.

More than three quarters of kids aged ten to 12

-have social media accounts...

-You get, like, addicted.

As soon as you start looking, you're just flicking through it for hours.

..bombarding our kids with supposedly perfect lives

and perfect people.

I follow Justin Bieber.

But is social media friend or foe,

and what is it doing to Welsh teenagers?

You can get, like, lost in it sometimes.

With child and adolescent mental health services

bursting at the seams in Wales, what are our teens coping with

and what can we do to help?

24-year-old Abigail from Neath has survived one of the most

destructive examples of body image disorders.

MUSIC PLAYS

I first developed signs of an eating disorder when I was nine years old.

It initially came into my life as a companionship, as a friend,

and tricked me, really,

into believing that I could trust this voice inside my head.

And at nine years old, I wasn't aware of an eating disorder.

I didn't know what they entailed.

It gradually wore me down,

so it would tell me that I was worthless, that I wasn't deserving

of happiness and, eventually, my mum took me to the doctor's.

I explained all my symptoms and the doctor diagnosed me

with anorexia nervosa and depression.

But she said at the time that my BMI wasn't low enough for me

to receive treatment, so she basically told me to come

back when I had lost more weight, which, when you're

in the grip of an eating disorder when you believe you

need to be losing weight, that was the perfect thing for me to be told.

Sent away from the doctor's at the age of 13, Abigail's weight

continued to plummet, bringing her close to death.

It was impossible because you feel isolated enough

with an eating disorder when your friends don't understand that much,

your family don't understand, so for the medical professionals

to not understand it either, you just feel like there's no hope.

It went on and on until the point where the doctor told me

that I was at risk of having a heart attack

and I was admitted to hospital straightaway.

The thing is, with an eating disorder,

your anorexia makes you believe that it'll stop

once it's satisfied and you just need to get down to a certain

weight and it will be satisfied.

But what I didn't know is that you can't be satisfied with

an eating disorder, because it won't stop until you die.

So I would look in the mirror,

I would see myself as a healthy, or if not overweight person,

so I was thinking everyone must be wrong,

they must be trying to trick me.

In the grip of my eating disorder, I felt disgusting.

I loathed myself.

I felt worthless.

I felt empty, void of any emotion, really,

and I think that's why I turned to self harm,

because I just needed to feel something physical.

Self harm is intentionally injuring your own body, usually by cutting.

According to the NSPCC, almost 20,000 young people called

ChildLine about self harm last year. 1,600 were in Wales.

We do see youngsters who experience great distress

and, on occasion, have used self harm to try and manage that.

Daune Green is an occupational therapist specialising in body image

and all the issues it can cause.

A lot of youngsters that we see will use mirrors to engage

in what we call an unhelpful behaviour.

So they will be looking in the mirror

and then they will start body checking.

Daune is part of CAMHS,

the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services,

where youngsters are treated when they have difficulties.

I run a body image group mainly for children

and adolescents with many different difficulties,

whether they have a diagnosed eating disorder, or whether they have

heightened anxiety, or low mood in regards to their body image issues.

So we look at what they're used for...

'These youngsters truly believe that it is their outer exterior

'that make them who they are.'

Maybe for young men, they want to be more muscular in their appearance.

If they looked, I don't know, like particular international

rugby players or footballers, that that would make them be more liked.

And if teenage boys want to find images to compare

themselves to, they don't have to look far.

Muscly male models are as available online as dangerously thin girls.

One of Daune's group members is 18-year-old Jordan from Oakdale,

who was bullied at school and grew up feeling that he didn't fit in.

I'd rather be on my own, because most of the time in school, no-one

would let me join in or anything, so I'd just rather be on my own.

If I was with people, they were all fake friends anyway, so...

-I'd just prefer to be on my own.

-It was really difficult.

Jordan is a very loving, sensitive child

and academically very able, but socially struggles.

School was really hard for Jordan. Really hard.

It wasn't like punching bullying or bullying like that, it was just...

I don't know, just picking and picking all the time, but...

He felt the bullying was because of how he looked

and this sort of progressed over time and he got very down about it.

He never went out through the door,

he would always stay in and play on his computer.

But even then, they'd get at him through the Xbox

and have a go at him, or wouldn't let him play on their team.

There was no escape from them, really.

At the age of 18, Jordan finally managed to find that escape

by going to the local gym.

If I don't go to the gym I don't feel right.

I've got to do every body part, I can't miss one body part.

I used to feel quite small,

but then with a gym, it makes you feel a lot better and you feel...

not scared of anyone, or anything like that,

you just overcome your fears and you just...

Yeah.

His physique changed drastically.

He went from 8.5 stone to 13.5 stone in 18 months.

But what started as self-help soon became a bigger problem.

Working out until, well, to the extremes. Doing press-ups

until I felt better in myself and it just wouldn't happen.

I would never be happy, so...

One, two in the morning, he would be exercising.

You know, he felt that he looked awful

and that he had to do this exercising.

Jordan became obsessed with how he looked.

Just looking in the mirror for ages and ages,

just making sure everything was the same in all my body parts.

I used to work out at night just to try and get them the same.

I used to be really bad.

College flagged up a few concerns

and obviously he was seen then under CAMHS -

Children and Adult Mental Health Services -

and they said that he had body dysmorphia.

Body dysmorphia gives sufferers a distorted view

of what they see when they look in the mirror.

They don't actually look at what they're looking at.

They look at what they think they're looking at

and that is a message that I can't, you know, stress enough -

you have to look at what you're looking at.

There is no rationalising that you look fine, you know,

you are a lovely person.

It's just rigid thinking and he cannot see that he looks fine.

He cannot see that he doesn't need to eat every two hours,

he doesn't need to exercise in the gym all the time, he doesn't

need to measure his body parts and think that they don't match up.

It's really difficult to get through to somebody

in that mind-set.

So for a mother, yeah,

I found it really difficult that I couldn't fix it for him.

There are lots and lots of young lads out there who need support

who are just not coming through to our services. I think they're...

I think a lot of the young lads are maybe too frightened

to ask for help or believe that this is normal.

It was hard. You know, he would come home and say to me,

"Oh, I didn't like this," or, "This was really hard,"

but they talked about their bodies and their problems and

they had to sort of open up and it was really good for his self-esteem.

I still find it hard, but I feel a lot better than I used to, so...

So better, but...

After eight weeks working with Daune,

Jordan is now more in control of his body dysmorphia.

I'm happy with my all body now, maybe except from...

Well, some of my parts are different to others, but I just got used

to it and I accepted that not everyone is going to be perfect.

A lot of these youngsters that we see have that perfectionist streak.

They're very high-achievers,

which then exacerbates all those things because they want to

be the perfect child or they want to look a specific way.

They want to be perfect and, again, through the group,

we talk about what's perfect.

Can any of us be perfect?

Jordan is holding down a job as a classroom assistant,

helping kids with one-to-one support.

He has turned his life around and made it a success -

from his own despair to be able to help others going through similar,

so I am very proud of him.

Jordan has turned a corner,

but many believe that the pressures on teenagers are increasing.

I have worked in psychiatry for 20-odd years now

and I really believe that the introduction to social media,

the more, I guess, intelligent technology is getting,

it's having an adverse effect on the youngsters that we're seeing.

Daune is not alone in worrying that social media can exacerbate

self-image problems, with such an emphasis on looking good.

Dr Amy Slater is a psychologist

based at the University of the West of England.

She's undertaking a new study looking at social media's

impact on teenagers.

This is the first generation that have grown up completely

surrounded by and immersed by digital technology.

Unlike the rest of us, who have not been immersed by this,

these young people, it's just been part of their daily life.

Teens are spending between three and four hours a day online, which is

why it's so important to understand the impact it's having on them.

Our early studies are showing that, yeah,

the more time young people spend engaged in this environment,

they're having negative feelings about themselves

and their bodies in particular.

Hey, everyone.

I'm going to show you how to capture the best version of yourself.

This video is a guide on how to take the perfect selfie.

Everybody is doing selfies, even, you know, the stars

and a lot of these girls will take photographs of themselves

and post them and, you know,

if they don't get a like, then they will internalise that as being,

"I'm not thin enough. I'm not pretty enough."

You got up this morning, you probably went on your phones

first thing and you were looking at Facebook

and you've got all the advertising on Facebook.

Then you may have gone on Twitter.

One initiative in Wales attempting to intervene early

and build self-esteem is The Go Girl Academy run by Wenda James-Rowe.

Anybody go on Instagram this morning? Come on, put your hands up.

Oh, my God, we've got some Instagram fans, then. Snapchat?

Yes, hands go up again.

I work with so many mums and daughters now

and hear so many terrible stories

of their daughters being affected by social media,

by growing up in a very pressurised environment,

having to feel that they have got to fit in.

Instagram, you see all the models on there and you're like,

"I wish I could be them," and, yeah,

you just want to be them sometimes.

If you fall out with friends or something, everyone knows about it.

-Yeah, yeah. So it's out there, isn't it?

-Yeah.

So what I'd like you to do is, you've written

a compliment about your friend. If you'd like to...

Wenda is attempting to boost their confidence by sharing

compliments with each other rather than internalising

anxieties about themselves.

I like Ellen because she laughs a lot. Her nail art is amazing.

You realise that you're changing and you get confused about it

and then other people are changing different to you.

So you compare and then you think, "Well, I'm different.

"Why am I different?" And then you get pressured.

You are such a kind-hearted person and a beautiful girl inside and out.

Oh, lovely!

Obviously, being mixed-race or tall, I've always felt different

and I didn't really like to speak about that or keep it...

I'd keep it to myself, but now I've realised that the reason...

Like, I have advantages and some people have advantages as well,

but we're not all the same.

-Yes, how does that make you feel?

-Nice.

-Lovely, big smile. Fab.

I like your eyebrows.

It makes you feel really warm and, like, happy.

Oh, that is wonderful.

Love it! Feel the love in the room, in there...

Many feel that boosting self-esteem is essential these days...

Try not to scrunch in your neck like this.

..in such an image-obsessed culture,

where girls are even told how to pose for a selfie.

Try different angles.

We know that poorer body image is related to a lot of negative

health outcomes for young people, including disordered eating,

lowered self-esteem, depression, erm,

and a whole range of negative health consequences.

24-year-old Keira from Brecon was hospitalised with anorexia

in her late teens.

Now recovered, she can see how social media can

impact on young, impressionable minds.

I think it can be very disfiguring

and it can be, like, a bad influence,

cos it's so easily accessible now,

especially for young girls in particular.

I know they say, like, there's supposed to be age limits,

so you're not supposed to have Facebook

until you're 12 or 13 or something like that,

but you can't really stop younger children, like, accessing it.

And they can do it without their parents knowing, up in their rooms,

on their phones all the time,

and they can just access anything they want,

because there can be images of self-harm,

of really, really thin people, which, you know,

you shouldn't really be allowed to be on there.

Even some of the images that have made it onto our magazine stands

are shocking to Wenda's Go Girls...

MUSIC: Disturbia by Rihanna

..but it enables her to open up a discussion.

How do those images make you feel?

-Shocked, actually.

-Shocked, yeah?

-Some people were way too thin and it was just a bit disgusting.

-Yeah.

'We know that, from previous research,'

where we've looked at traditional media,

we know that, when we look at the images that are presented

to us in the media, these are often unrealistic and unattainable.

The reason this beauty is unattainable is

because it's not real.

This video, although an extreme example,

shows how images can be manipulated...

..and for some of Wenda's Go Girls, it's an eye-opener.

Yeah. How does that make you feel, Lily?

It makes me feel a little bit insecure.

-Does it?

-Yeah.

It's basically making that girl feel more insecure now,

-because they're changing the way she looks.

-Yeah.

What might be different in the social media environment is

that it's also quite easy now to edit our photos that we're posting,

whether this is just to put a simple filter on our Instagram images,

or more serious editing,

which has now become much more simple for the user to do.

If we want to alter the shape of the nose...

So the tools of the trade that were once in the hands

of the professionals are now freely available to any of us

via apps on our phones,

allowing teenagers to become fixated on what they perceive as blemishes.

Let's tuck in the patch of stray hair from the brow.

Using Patch can help us fix the teeth and remove some blemishes.

OK, we're done here.

'We work with these youngsters

'and they have this idealistic image of how they want to look.'

I would love to have legs like Beyonce.

No matter how much exercise, no matter what, you know,

diet I do, it's never going to happen.

And these kids, they look at me as if, like, "What are you on about?"

But they're having these similar ideas

about particular pop stars or actresses,

and they truly believe that they will achieve that,

and it's unrealistic.

Lovely.

18-year-old Megan from Bridgend is a veteran of the Go Girl Academy

and an avid user of Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook.

-Oh, Megan. Gah!

-Well...

For her, social media is a source of positive inspiration.

I follow a lot of inspiring people - Ashley Graham being one of them.

She's one of the first plus-size models to

grace Sports Illustrated in America.

The confident Megan we see today has flourished.

In the past, she was bullied at school for being overweight.

At the time, I wasn't a very body-confident person.

It did make me cry an awful lot, which is why my mum made me

sort it out with my head over here.

Megan has now embraced the world of pageantry.

I think that girls need to realise -

and the media needs to realise -

that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes,

and I think social media is the way that we're able

to show the bigger media - the big, wide world - that it does.

It can be really daunting for some girls -

especially like me, who's a plus-size girl.

It really daunted me, which is why I thought, "Go big or go home."

Body confidence is not about achieving the perfect body,

it's about embracing the one you have.

Whilst social media works for some,

dietician Sioned Quirke believes it's brought with it

a brand-new condition.

Ten years ago, I hadn't seen anybody with orthorexia.

I hadn't heard of it. I didn't know what it was.

Then, about five years ago, as social media really grew,

I would see, maybe, one case every six months.

At the moment, I think I could easily see about one case a month.

Orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.

Salads, fruit, vegetables,

trendy foods like quinoa and bean sprouts,

and things that are really seen on social media,

that a lot of people are blogging about, or celebrities are eating.

Although the foods are healthy, some unqualified bloggers

are giving incorrect advice about what the body needs to

function properly, missing out on essential food groups.

So, you start to restrict your way of thinking,

that you only eat certain things and you won't touch other things,

and that can manifest very quickly into an eating disorder,

but the other thing that it can do is

if you don't obtain that perfect lifestyle,

you are constantly putting yourself down.

They look at these posts of somebody doing Pilates on the beach,

or eating salad for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper,

and it makes you feel inadequate.

They're not going to post themselves having a bad day,

on the sofa, with a cup of tea and a biscuit, in their joggers,

so they're creating an illusion that isn't factually correct.

MUSIC: Shake It Off by Taylor Swift

A whole industry has sprung up around bloggers.

Welsh teens are following the lives of bloggers

and vloggers across the globe, as if they lived next door...

-Hi, everyone. Welcome back.

-..waiting for the next post

about their perfect lives,

but are we beginning to see a backlash among the bloggers?

Australian Essena O'Neill had over 600,000 followers

and recently threw in the towel.

Taking myself off social media is a wake-up call to

anyone and everyone who follows me.

I had the "dream life".

I'm the girl that "had it all",

and I want to tell you that "having it all"

on social media means absolutely nothing to your real life.

Everything I was doing was edited and contrived,

and to get more views.

When I was 12, I told myself I meant nothing -

that I was worthy of nothing, because I wasn't popular online.

I wasn't a model. I wasn't beautiful by society's standards.

I have been googling models, the centimetres of their waists

and their thighs, and then measuring my own to compare.

At 12, I thought I was nothing,

and then, here, at nearly 19, with all of these followers,

I don't even know what is real and what is not,

because I've let myself be defined by something that is so not real.

Instagram, to me...

I use Instagram, but it's very much...

You post what you want people to see -

you don't post all of real life, you know?

I could live a life on Instagram where I look happy all the time.

I'm, you know, I'm always having a great time,

but that's not the reality of life.

Everybody has a day where they don't feel great,

but you don't particularly portray that on social media,

so it's, again, an unattainable thing for you to just

look at Instagram and see that as something that you can live,

but, as a teenager, you look at that and maybe you don't understand

that there is another side to people's lives.

And it was seeing a new side to life that was to prove fundamental

to Abigail's recovery.

On this side, we have the other side of me,

so this is all my football jerseys.

This is the shirt that Wales qualified for the Euros in.

So this one...

'One evening, my uncle asked if he could take me'

out of hospital to go and watch a football match and I initially

saw that as just, you know, a bit of time away from hospital.

I didn't think anything of it.

And he took me to the football

and that's where I found a different purpose in life, really.

I found something that I could be passionate about,

that I could be successful in, without having an eating disorder.

'It was initially escapism from my eating disorder.

'It was 90 minutes a week where

I could just think about another thing...' Yeah. See you in a bit.

'..as opposed to how many calories you're consuming

'and things like that, so it was great to have that and then,

'over time, it's become more and more my life, my passion...'

Yeah. Thank you. Ta.

-What are you having?

-Cider.

-CASH REGISTER CLICKS

'We normally get to the ground about 2pm.

'We'll get a pint and then it's match time.'

The one furthest, actually, that's Lukasz Fabianski, isn't it?

-Now kicking the ball.

-You have better eyesight than I have.

'All the build-up throughout the week and it comes to this.

'You wake up on a Saturday and it is'

the best 90 minutes of the week.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

Up the Swans.

The catalyst to Abigail's recovery was sport -

something real, away from the pressures of screens -

and when Ruth Steggles' daughter developed anorexia,

they also found solace in the outdoors.

When you sit and talk to somebody,

you can have the problem between you

and it can become quite uncomfortable,

and it can be quite aggressive, but actually when you're walking,

you're facing a problem together,

so it's not between you.

It's not an obstacle between you but

it's something you face together,

and we think much more clearly and much more creatively

when we're outside.

Ruth's daughter is now doing well

and they've written a book to share their experiences

with other families.

I think it's really tough for teenagers these days.

Certainly, when I was at school, you'd be at school

and whatever happened at school, you'd come home

and it was left at school, whereas, now I see...

I see the kids - they're constantly on their phones

and if they're not on their phones in the group chat,

then they're worried that they're going to be left out

and that they're not in the same place, so there's this absolute

constant bombardment to be public and be performing.

And the other thing is, you know,

it can be dark, it can be really tough,

and everybody in the family can feel, actually, really miserable,

so one of the things that we tried very much to do was to

put some humour into our life.

We watched a load of really rubbish movies

because, actually, we needed to change our state.

You know, you can't...

You've got to put some normality into life.

You need to carry on having fun as a family,

cos that's where the hope is,

so, yeah, rent some rubbish films and have a laugh.

Body image issues can vary from a niggling worry about

being too tall or too thin, to an all-consuming mental illness

that can bring a family to its knees.

I would love to stand there and say,

"I have no issue with my body image at all."

I'd be lying, because each and everyone of us,

at some stage in our lives,

or a particular day is better than another...

We all experience that,

and it's about, you know,

putting your hand up and saying, "Yeah, I do."

But it's how I deal with it

and, unfortunately, these youngsters that we see

struggle with dealing with that.

Don't be afraid to talk about it

and if you think someone's struggling,

or you notice they're a bit funny with their eating,

maybe losing a bit of weight, like, try and approach them

and don't be afraid, because they may not realise themselves what is

going on, that they're starting to develop signs of an eating disorder.

Yeah, you still have to use some of the techniques when...

when you get annoyed or anything like that.

Just... Just remember to think positive instead of just

going off on one or something.

If I could speak to anyone who's suffering from an eating disorder,

firstly, I'd tell them that they're worthy of life

and they're worthy of happiness,

and everything that their eating disorder is telling them,

they may not believe it now, but it is a lie,

and the only way that you're going to achieve any real happiness

in your life is to get rid of your eating disorder,

and it's going to be a hard battle,

but it's one that's really worthwhile, and I know that,

because I've been there, I've done it,

and it's the best battle I've ever fought in my life.