Older girls affect young girls' body image in middle schools, not boys

A new study has revealed that girls' body image gets affected by older peers and not by guys.

A research team led by Jaine Strauss, Professor of Psychology at Macalester College, who surveyed 1,536 5th graders through 8th-grade female students attending schools with different grade groupings, found that female 5th and 6th graders who were educated alongside older girls reported a greater desire to be thin as well as less satisfaction with and more self-consciousness about their bodies.

The researchers said that elevated levels of body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, thin-ideal internalization, body surveillance, and body shame may undermine young teens' social, emotional, and academic well-being both during the early teen years and in later life and although body image tends to decline as girls move through adolescence, this study suggests that school grade groupings may influence the pace and timing of this decline.

The study was published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly.