The health and wellbeing of our young girls should be a priority

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They should not have a daily diet of anxiety and low self-esteem (Alamy/PA)

I read with such dismay (although with no great surprise) Barney Davis’s column: “Young girls happiness at an ‘all-time-low’, survey reveals”. The Girlguiding annual attitudes survey flags up some very worrying concerns and tells us that young girls’ mental health is affected by so many issues. This surely is an indictment on us all.

Of course, being pilloried on social media for their looks and how they are made to feel that they have to achieve an “acceptable norm” is dire, and is something that needs urgent attention from these platforms. They should not have a daily diet of anxiety and low self-esteem because of feeling the utter heaviness of too much expectation placed on too young shoulders. They will inevitably buckle, which will have long-term consequences on their mental health, with all that that entails for their general health and wellbeing.

Angela Salt, Girlguiding’s chief executive, is spot on that organisations like hers can indeed offer such support to young girls’ flailing spirits. Our government needs to get its act together with more help and mental health support, and not leave it to schools and parents to take up the slack.