If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably seen my previous posts about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and their self-esteem workshops. If you haven’t, please take the time to take a look. As the mother of a young daughter, this is a subject I’m very passionate about.

One of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund’s most recent projects has been a study entitled Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report on the State of Self-Esteem. It revealed some alarming statistics that point to the existence of a self-esteem crisis among young girls. Here are a few of the findings:

• 7 in 10 girls feel that they do not measure up in some way, whether in looks, school performance, or relationships.
• 75% of girls with low self-esteem said they engaged in negative behaviors, including such things as smoking, drinking, cutting themselves, bullying and disordered eating.
• 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem have purposely injured themselves.
• 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem have engaged in some form of disordered eating.

The study also found that the older girls get, the less likely they are to talk to their parents when they feel badly about themselves. That means that it’s never too early to start fostering good self-esteem.

These statistics are frightening for any parent of a teen or preteen girl. Isn’t it time we did something to turn it around? Dove has been on a mission to do just that. It is their goal to reach five million girls around the world with self-esteem programming by the year 2010. In addition to their self-esteem workshops and advertising campaigns, they offer a wealth of online tools for girls, moms and mentors on their Campaign for Real Beauty website. There you’ll find booklets, interactive exercises, and even tools that can help you hold your own self-esteem workshop.

I’ve had several people ask me about where they can attend Dove’s self-esteem workshops. I finally found a page where you can sign up to receive alerts about workshops in your area. I’ll leave you with another short film produced by Dove that sums up a few of the reasons behind the self-esteem crisis.