I have been keeping a covert eye on the posters next to my daughters' beds. The reason? Until recently, the pictures on the wall were mostly items such as cute fluffy cats. But these days boy bands are cropping up (think One Direction), along with my daughters' favourite female television and pop stars (Selena Gomez, Katy Perry, Victoria Justice and so on). And while these girls all have cheery faces and sparkling white teeth, they feature something else too: a slim physique, beautiful features and a tendency to wear short(ish) skirts.
Is this a bad thing? I would love to say no. After all, similar images have been circulating in teenage bedrooms for decades. But a few weeks ago I watched the documentary Miss Representation, and those smiles no longer seem quite so innocent.
The basic message of Miss Representation - which was released in America last year - is that media images are having an increasingly powerful impact on how children think and act. Most notably, girls today are being encouraged to think that they have to be slim and beautiful - if not outwardly sexualised - to “succeed”. While some of that brainwashing comes from explicit material, the most potent influences are often the most subtle, ranging from the behaviour of TV news anchors, to the pictures on girls' bedroom walls.