“[In] a survey of 3,000 fourth through tenth graders conducted by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) revealed that most girls fail to look in the mirror and say, "I'm cute!" or even 'I'm fine!'" (Cordes 4). Social media, avenues of peer and parental influence, and models of “beauty” cause young girls in today's society to develop a distorted view of beauty. Over time, America has reached a level that describes beauty as an unrealistic and unattainable model of the “perfect beautiful girl.” According to research by Shelly Grabe, Janet Shibley Hyde, both employees of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and L. Monique Ward of the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, half of the female population under the age of twenty-four confess of being dissatisfied with their appearance (Grabe, Hyde, and Ward 460). Women in today's society look to their own culture to understand what exactly beauty is, and recently the portrayal of beauty has been tainted. There is a myriad of hypothesized causes for this tendency towards negative self-perception in young women, and many of these causes ultimately lead to extreme and dangerous measures by girls trying to achieve the “idealized level of beauty.” Friendship cliques have been shown to have a direct correlation with girls and body image. From the research of two professors from the School of Psychology at Flinders University Levina Clark and Marika Tiggermann, "poor body image in children has been associated with teasing by peers and conversations with peers about appearance" (Clark and Tiggermann 1125). Peers easily convince girls, and if a girl's peer group considers it unreal...... middle of paper ......e Effect of experimental exposure to images of dolls on the body image of children of ages 5 to 8 -old Girls." Developmental Psychology 42.2 (2006): 283-92. PsycARTICLES. Web. November 29, 2011. Grabe, Shelly, L. Monique Ward, and Janet Shibley Hyde. "The Role of the Media in Body image concerns among women: a meta-analysis of experimental and correlational studies." Psychological Bulletin 134.3 (2008): 460-76. PsycARTICLES. Web. November 29, 2011. Smolak, Linda. "Eating Disorders in Girls." Handbook of Behavioral and Emotional Problems in Girls, Ed. Sharon L. Foster, Eric J. Mash, and Deborah J. Bell New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2005. 463+ Web "Risk Factors for Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescent Girls: a longitudinal investigation 38.5 (2002): PsyARTICLES November 29. 2011.