For a long time, people said that our girls mostly idolize celebrities that pushed them to go on diets, starving and ultimately develop eating disorders. That is one of the reasons I don’t really like my kids to watch movies or shows starred by a very thin celebrity.

However, new study cited by PhysOrg comes to show that this is not necessarily the case since weight control behavior is related to peers and not someone on the outside. The findings of the study show that not all teen girls equate thin with beautiful for the simple reason that those around them are more on the heavy side. This way, being overweight becomes acceptable, just like being underweight is acceptable in schools with a larger number of girls who are on inappropriate diets. In the end, whether a teen girl wants to lose, gain or maintain the same weight seems to be mostly dependent on how her mates look like. The researcher named Anna Mueller said that underweight girls were not likely to be trying to lose weight, unless they were in schools where underweight girls regularly reported trying to lose weight.

If this is true I am lucky my kids are not part of a super thin community. They grow healthy and in just right weight.