If you don't feel pretty... What the teenagers say

Teenagers from Sheffield discuss body image

"Dieting adverts in the media have always got skinny twigs advertising their products. They don't show somebody who needs to lose weight, they show them after they've lost it. People say Victoria Beckham is unhappy and anorexic. Only she knows whether she is or not. It's not for papers to do that. They've often got nothing better to write about. They have to pull all the famous down. Why should we judge anyone because of their weight?"

"People always try and pressure you to alter your image. Everyone says 'Oh, you can change dead easily,' and it's really hard to change yourself, to turn around and be something completely different. You have to change everything - the way you think, the way you are, the lot. There's so much pressure on you. It's a two-way street and you're going to get hit. If you're seen as too skinny, you're going to get criticised. If you're too fat, you're going to get knocked. You can't win."

"Boys are getting more bothered about their image. They're vain. They're not bothered if they're fat or skinny. I just think they're bothered if they've got muscles, or whether their hair is straight. But there's no pressure for them is there? They don't have to be perfect, do they? They can pass by merely being OK. But with a woman or a girl, you have to be perfect for a lad."

"I think that people in the media try to be so thin they look sickly. Maybe it's because everyone says the camera puts on pounds, but when kids that are uncertain about themselves see how thin famous people are, they want to be as thin as them and start going on a diet. Sometimes people take looking like their idol too far. Say their idol is a size 8 and they're a size 10, they'll try to get down to an 8. But sometimes this works against the way their body is built."

This article was produced by editors David Burnham and Mark Lewis, 15, and reporters Rachel Walmsley, and Kimberley Bennett, 13. It was published in the Sheffield Star.