November 1, 2023 • 14 mins
Imagine the profound impact if we could disentangle body satisfaction and self-esteem among our teenagers?
Dr Gourgari presents research that was done to explore the crucial link between body image and self-esteem amongst our youth.
"Body Image and Self-Esteem Among Adolescent Girls: Testing the Influence
of Sociocultural Factors. Daniel Clay et al "
I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.
Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders
Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!
📲 Subscribe to my newsletter for weekly emails packed with easy tips, clinical insights, and practical tools
🎁 Grab your FREE high-protein recipe guide with 30 meals teens will love.
Links
30 Healthy Recipes for teens
lifestyleforteens.com/recipes
Smoothies Recipes for teens
lifestyleforteens.com/smoothies
Subscribe to my newsletter
lifestyleforteens.com/newsletter
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Lifestyle in Weight Loss for Teens
podcast.
If you are a mom and want tohelp your child who is
struggling to lose weight, youare in the right place.
If you are looking for healthylifestyle tips, dr Gorgary is
here to help you understand thescience around safe weight loss
in teens and children, becausewhat works for adult weight loss
is not always the best forchildren.
(00:29):
This podcast is for educationalpurposes only.
Dr Gorgary does not providemedical, psychological or
nutrition therapy advice.
You should not use thisinformation to diagnose or treat
any health problems withoutconsulting your own medical
practitioner and now your host,dr Jenny Gorgary.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle
in Weight Loss Weight Loss forTeens podcast.
This is Dr Jenny Gorgary andI'm here today to talk about
body image issues in teenagers.
So there's a lot of things thatwe can cover on this topic, but
for this particular episode,I'm only going to focus on one
(01:18):
aspect, and that is the socialmedia influence.
So it has been shown in manystudies so far that the exposure
to social media is a hugefactor that contributes to body
dissatisfaction and can lead toabnormal body image issues.
(01:40):
And today's episode I'm goingto present one study that was
done a few years ago inteenagers in England and wanted
to examine this exact thing,which is what is the effect of
the exposure of the social mediaon teenagers' body image issue.
(02:02):
So what did the researchers do?
They actually asked teenagersfrom high school to look on
different images.
So they looked on images thatthey were models that were very
thin.
Then they looked at pictures ofmodels that they were average
(02:26):
size, and then they look atimages that they were a
Christmas socks or somethinglike, not even related to any
model.
So they asked them to look atthis picture and they looked at
it picture for 15 seconds andafter the exposure to the
(02:49):
different images, theresearchers looked to see what
is the body satisfaction ordissatisfaction measurements of
girls that were exposed to theseimages.
So they would ask questionsthat had to do with how
(03:11):
satisfied the teenagers werewith their body image.
So, for example, there would besentences like I don't most
people would consider megood-looking, and then they
would ask them that I stronglyagree or I definitely disagree
with this statement.
So there would be like a range,so based on scores, similar to
(03:34):
these questions.
Then they would make for everygirl a score about body
satisfaction.
Then they would ask them allalso questions that had to do
with self-esteem.
For example, they would askthem on the whole, I'm satisfied
with myself, and that would belike strongly agree, moderately
(03:55):
agree or strongly disagree.
So again they would get a senseof, like their self-esteem.
So they asked them to look atthese pictures and then whether
they were ultra thin and likevery thin, average size or not
even a model, as I said, andthen they would ask questions
that had to do with bodysatisfaction and their
(04:18):
self-esteem, and then theycompared those values between
the groups that they wereexposing, the models versus the
group that were exposed innon-models and then they would
rate them.
Now, when they did the analysis,let's see what they came up
with.
(04:38):
What they found was that thegirls that they were exposed to
the models of average size andmodels that they wore very thin,
they had lower self-esteemscores and they had lower body
(04:59):
satisfaction scores, which isagain one of the studies that
supports the notion that thesocial media has a negative
effect on the body imageperception that we have.
I mean, that is true also inadults, but in this particular
(05:20):
case we are focusing aboutteenagers, girls, so this is not
an exception.
Then they even went one stepfurther than that and they look
at the different ages.
What they found was that askids get older because the group
(05:42):
was between 11 and 16 years ofage so the researchers found
that between ages 11 to 16, askids become older and they
become more socially aware ofwhat is considered beautiful or
what is a social norm then atthe same time that the awareness
(06:07):
became higher, at the same timethat body satisfaction became
lower and their self-esteemscores also were lower.
The researchers also wanted todo one extra step in the
analysis when they removed thebody satisfaction factor from
(06:30):
the calculations on the effecton the self-esteem.
Then that had resolved, whichmeans that really the lower
self-esteem scores were drivenmainly by the body satisfaction
perception, which is a veryimportant message that currently
(06:54):
there are likely a lot ofteenagers who link their
self-esteem to their bodysatisfaction.
So what does that tell us?
That tells us that two things.
One is by improving the bodysatisfaction we can improve the
(07:14):
self-confidence of our teenagers, and second, we should put more
effort into improving theself-esteem and try to
dissociate it from a bodysatisfaction.
These are just my beliefs onwhat we could do to take this
(07:37):
message to the next level,because one the first level is
to recognize the problem.
The second level is to try tosee where we are in the spectrum
and what we can do to improvethat.
Another interesting point fromthis study was that the body
(07:57):
satisfaction seemed to beaffected not only by the ultra
thin models but also from themodels of average size.
And I have read somewhere alsothat there was some suggestion
from another study that if thereare overweight models then that
(08:22):
tends to improve the bodysatisfaction perception of
teenagers, but if it is a normalsize it's not enough to help
them feel better about theirbody.
So it's not really by itself,probably even the normal weight
(08:42):
or the underweight, because itis other factors that go into
how these models are presented,and we should spend some time to
educate our teenagers,especially in this critical
point, when they're starting tobecome more socially aware of
(09:04):
what is considered beautiful,that a lot of these models and a
lot of the way they arepresented on social media, it is
already, after a lot of filters, a lot of makeup and a lot of
expensive clothes and Photoshopand all these things that are
(09:26):
done in images or even videos onsocial media that give the
image of a perfect body, perfectface, perfect, which may not be
.
So.
The more exposure the kids havetoday, especially adolescents,
the higher the risk for them todevelop this unhealthy body
(09:50):
image situation.
So I would encourage you tostart have a conversation around
this topic.
Perhaps, instead of giving alecture, you can, if you want,
you can, use this podcast as anopportunity to discuss.
Hey, did you know that?
(10:10):
They did this study and itshowed this?
What do you think Anotherapproach would be to, while your
teenager may be on YouTube orInstagram or Facebook and they
make a comment about a model oreven a friend or somebody else
(10:30):
they had seen and that seems tohave a negative effect on how
they compare that image they areseeing to themselves.
And if you notice that there issome negative effect there,
then that can also be a startingpoint to discuss about body
(10:52):
image and the effect on thesocial media and how strong it
is and how far a lot of theseimages are from reality.
So that's all I had to talkabout today.
I'm going to create futureepisodes because it is a big
(11:13):
concern body image issue inteenagers and in this episode we
didn't even touch the fact ofactual weight or actual body
mass index on body image becausein this particular study the
researchers did not capture dataon the body mass index, which
(11:34):
is actually.
They also mentioned one of thelimitations of this study.
The actual title of thismanuscript is Body Image and
Self-Esteem among adolescentgirls testing the influence of
sociocultural factors.
It was published in Journal ofResearch on Endolescents in 2005
(11:55):
.
I'm going to put the title onmy show notes.
If you found this episodehelpful, I encourage you to
share it with other families andfriends.
You can post it on your socialmedia, you can send an email,
whatever works for you.
I hope we can all try our bestto educate our families and our
(12:18):
teenagers about the importanceof social media on influencing
the body image perception wehave, and particularly that is
true for teenagers.
I hope you find this helpful.
I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Take care Bye If you enjoyed listening to this
podcast.
I invite you to come check outthe Lift program.
It's Dr Gorgary's 12-weekcoaching program for teens and
their moms, where we take allthis information, we apply it to
your daily life and we worktogether so your teenager learns
how to create a healthylifestyle so they can feel
happier, more confident, lessstressed and love their body
(12:58):
again.
Visit the website atlifestyleforteenscom and click
on the work with me and freeresources to learn more about
this program and get free helpto start this journey right away
.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llcatch you in the next episode of
Lifestyle and Weight Loss forTeens.
This is the Lifestyle in Weight Loss for Teens
podcast.
If you are a mom and want tohelp your child who is
struggling to lose weight, youare in the right place.
If you are looking for healthylifestyle tips, dr Gorgary is
here to help you understand thescience around safe weight loss
in teens and children, becausewhat works for adult weight loss
is not always the best forchildren.
(00:29):
This podcast is for educationalpurposes only.
Dr Gorgary does not providemedical, psychological or
nutrition therapy advice.
You should not use thisinformation to diagnose or treat
any health problems withoutconsulting your own medical
practitioner and now your host,dr Jenny Gorgary.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle
in Weight Loss Weight Loss forTeens podcast.
This is Dr Jenny Gorgary andI'm here today to talk about
body image issues in teenagers.
So there's a lot of things thatwe can cover on this topic, but
for this particular episode,I'm only going to focus on one
(01:18):
aspect, and that is the socialmedia influence.
So it has been shown in manystudies so far that the exposure
to social media is a hugefactor that contributes to body
dissatisfaction and can lead toabnormal body image issues.
(01:40):
And today's episode I'm goingto present one study that was
done a few years ago inteenagers in England and wanted
to examine this exact thing,which is what is the effect of
the exposure of the social mediaon teenagers' body image issue.
(02:02):
So what did the researchers do?
They actually asked teenagersfrom high school to look on
different images.
So they looked on images thatthey were models that were very
thin.
Then they looked at pictures ofmodels that they were average
(02:26):
size, and then they look atimages that they were a
Christmas socks or somethinglike, not even related to any
model.
So they asked them to look atthis picture and they looked at
it picture for 15 seconds andafter the exposure to the
(02:49):
different images, theresearchers looked to see what
is the body satisfaction ordissatisfaction measurements of
girls that were exposed to theseimages.
So they would ask questionsthat had to do with how
(03:11):
satisfied the teenagers werewith their body image.
So, for example, there would besentences like I don't most
people would consider megood-looking, and then they
would ask them that I stronglyagree or I definitely disagree
with this statement.
So there would be like a range,so based on scores, similar to
(03:34):
these questions.
Then they would make for everygirl a score about body
satisfaction.
Then they would ask them allalso questions that had to do
with self-esteem.
For example, they would askthem on the whole, I'm satisfied
with myself, and that would belike strongly agree, moderately
(03:55):
agree or strongly disagree.
So again they would get a senseof, like their self-esteem.
So they asked them to look atthese pictures and then whether
they were ultra thin and likevery thin, average size or not
even a model, as I said, andthen they would ask questions
that had to do with bodysatisfaction and their
(04:18):
self-esteem, and then theycompared those values between
the groups that they wereexposing, the models versus the
group that were exposed innon-models and then they would
rate them.
Now, when they did the analysis,let's see what they came up
with.
(04:38):
What they found was that thegirls that they were exposed to
the models of average size andmodels that they wore very thin,
they had lower self-esteemscores and they had lower body
(04:59):
satisfaction scores, which isagain one of the studies that
supports the notion that thesocial media has a negative
effect on the body imageperception that we have.
I mean, that is true also inadults, but in this particular
(05:20):
case we are focusing aboutteenagers, girls, so this is not
an exception.
Then they even went one stepfurther than that and they look
at the different ages.
What they found was that askids get older because the group
(05:42):
was between 11 and 16 years ofage so the researchers found
that between ages 11 to 16, askids become older and they
become more socially aware ofwhat is considered beautiful or
what is a social norm then atthe same time that the awareness
(06:07):
became higher, at the same timethat body satisfaction became
lower and their self-esteemscores also were lower.
The researchers also wanted todo one extra step in the
analysis when they removed thebody satisfaction factor from
(06:30):
the calculations on the effecton the self-esteem.
Then that had resolved, whichmeans that really the lower
self-esteem scores were drivenmainly by the body satisfaction
perception, which is a veryimportant message that currently
(06:54):
there are likely a lot ofteenagers who link their
self-esteem to their bodysatisfaction.
So what does that tell us?
That tells us that two things.
One is by improving the bodysatisfaction we can improve the
(07:14):
self-confidence of our teenagers, and second, we should put more
effort into improving theself-esteem and try to
dissociate it from a bodysatisfaction.
These are just my beliefs onwhat we could do to take this
(07:37):
message to the next level,because one the first level is
to recognize the problem.
The second level is to try tosee where we are in the spectrum
and what we can do to improvethat.
Another interesting point fromthis study was that the body
(07:57):
satisfaction seemed to beaffected not only by the ultra
thin models but also from themodels of average size.
And I have read somewhere alsothat there was some suggestion
from another study that if thereare overweight models then that
(08:22):
tends to improve the bodysatisfaction perception of
teenagers, but if it is a normalsize it's not enough to help
them feel better about theirbody.
So it's not really by itself,probably even the normal weight
(08:42):
or the underweight, because itis other factors that go into
how these models are presented,and we should spend some time to
educate our teenagers,especially in this critical
point, when they're starting tobecome more socially aware of
(09:04):
what is considered beautiful,that a lot of these models and a
lot of the way they arepresented on social media, it is
already, after a lot of filters, a lot of makeup and a lot of
expensive clothes and Photoshopand all these things that are
(09:26):
done in images or even videos onsocial media that give the
image of a perfect body, perfectface, perfect, which may not be
.
So.
The more exposure the kids havetoday, especially adolescents,
the higher the risk for them todevelop this unhealthy body
(09:50):
image situation.
So I would encourage you tostart have a conversation around
this topic.
Perhaps, instead of giving alecture, you can, if you want,
you can, use this podcast as anopportunity to discuss.
Hey, did you know that?
(10:10):
They did this study and itshowed this?
What do you think Anotherapproach would be to, while your
teenager may be on YouTube orInstagram or Facebook and they
make a comment about a model oreven a friend or somebody else
(10:30):
they had seen and that seems tohave a negative effect on how
they compare that image they areseeing to themselves.
And if you notice that there issome negative effect there,
then that can also be a startingpoint to discuss about body
(10:52):
image and the effect on thesocial media and how strong it
is and how far a lot of theseimages are from reality.
So that's all I had to talkabout today.
I'm going to create futureepisodes because it is a big
(11:13):
concern body image issue inteenagers and in this episode we
didn't even touch the fact ofactual weight or actual body
mass index on body image becausein this particular study the
researchers did not capture dataon the body mass index, which
(11:34):
is actually.
They also mentioned one of thelimitations of this study.
The actual title of thismanuscript is Body Image and
Self-Esteem among adolescentgirls testing the influence of
sociocultural factors.
It was published in Journal ofResearch on Endolescents in 2005
(11:55):
.
I'm going to put the title onmy show notes.
If you found this episodehelpful, I encourage you to
share it with other families andfriends.
You can post it on your socialmedia, you can send an email,
whatever works for you.
I hope we can all try our bestto educate our families and our
(12:18):
teenagers about the importanceof social media on influencing
the body image perception wehave, and particularly that is
true for teenagers.
I hope you find this helpful.
I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Take care Bye If you enjoyed listening to this
podcast.
I invite you to come check outthe Lift program.
It's Dr Gorgary's 12-weekcoaching program for teens and
their moms, where we take allthis information, we apply it to
your daily life and we worktogether so your teenager learns
how to create a healthylifestyle so they can feel
happier, more confident, lessstressed and love their body
(12:58):
again.
Visit the website atlifestyleforteenscom and click
on the work with me and freeresources to learn more about
this program and get free helpto start this journey right away
.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llcatch you in the next episode of
Lifestyle and Weight Loss forTeens.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com