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Having body image issues is painful for even the most mature among us. For teens, the insecurity and pain can be far more serious. A negative body image doesn't stop at causing a teen to feel insecure. This problem can be at the root of eating disorders, exercise obsession, substance abuse, steroid use, and depression.

Most teenagers have body image issues to one degree or another, and blaming media images may be the natural thing to do. After all, young people aspire to be like people they admire. Who wouldn't admire those seemingly perfectly built models who look so great in their swimsuits, evening gowns, career wear, or athletic clothes?

Before placing all the blame on media images, though, focusing on the developmental stage of teenagers may shed some additional light on teenagers and body image issues.

Teenagers between the ages of thirteen and fifteen are new and relatively new at being teenagers. Being thirteen or fourteen does not guarantee having become physically mature, so many kids of this age are among friends who appear more mature or less mature than they are. The kids who are less mature than peers can feel as if they "still look like children". Those kids who are mature before most of their peers can struggle with feeling like "the only one" and/or being seen as "the only one". Regardless of whether they're behind, average, or ahead in physical development, kids of this age generally have some insecurities about their bodies. Further more, kids of this age are generally not as "polished" as older teens are. They may have transformed from being children into being more adult-like in build, but they are not yet, in fact, completely transformed into the more polished people they will become in their late teens.

Teens who are sixteen to nineteen aren't a lot more confident, but they have at least had their more adult body long enough to be used to it. Teens of this age, though, are often treated as adults, faced with the matters of dating and sex, and at a stage were they feel "all grown up" but dissatisfied with their "body lot in life". In reality, a sixteen- or seventeen-year old may not really be completely through with body changes; but kids this age think they are. Eighteen- and nineteen-year olds, of course, have reached a more complete maturity, but their brains will not be finished maturing until they are in the early twenties or slightly after. The older teen who lacks intellectual/emotional maturity (either because of the normal growth

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