The NSPCC advice to parents/guardians:
- Remind your child not to compare themselves to other people - everyone is different.
- Talk to them about what they like about themselves and what you like about them. Focus on other things other than appearance, like the hobbies they enjoy or things they are good at - this can help build their confidence and self-esteem.
- Tell them to talk to you about any negative or mean comments from other people - if they can't talk to you remind them that they can contact ChildLine 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- Talk to your children about what they do online and agree what times they should go online. Explain that you think it's important they do a variety of activities. You recognise that they enjoy being online, but you think it's important they do other things as well.
Rachel Gardner, a youth worker with Youthscape, was speaking after an NSPCC report reveals that girls as young as eight are contacting ChildLine because the pressures of modern society have left them with crippling fears about the way they look.
She told Premier bodies need to be respected and loved.
She said: "As Christians we believe that our bodies are good, they're beautiful, and they're made not to decorate the environment but to influence it and shape it and our bodies have this wonderful purpose - so I think we need to be talking about the images because we need to be talking about the shame that many girls and boys internalise."
The NSPCC's ChildLine service received 1,596 contacts from girls worried about body image over 2015/16 - 17% increase on the previous year.
Research showed eight times more likely to contact ChildLine with body image worries than boys.
The majority of girls who called ChildLine about body image were aged between 12 and 15.
But the service also received 77 calls from girls under the age of 11.
Some who contacted the service said they struggled to cope with the intense pressure to look like the women they saw in the media, stating they felt 'fat', 'ugly' and 'disgusting' in comparison.
Rachel Gardner said adults need to start taking children and young people's body concerns seriously.
"The moment that we start talking about the things they're afraid of, the moment we acknowledge that their feelings are real and we going to take them seriously... that empowers young people to begin to think 'do I want to look like that?, maybe I could appreciate myself in a different way,' " she said.
She went on: "The more we talk and demonstrate and role model, this is my body, this is who I am, I'm going to look after it healthily, I'm going to care for my body, I'm going to protect my body, and we role model that to young people, then they begin to mimic what they see us model."
Listen to Premier's Hannah Tooley speak to Rachel Gardner here:
