Too many girls are unhappy, report finds

About half of children in this age group had been bullied at school in the last month, a report found.

The Children's Society's annual state-of-the-nation review of young people's wellbeing found almost 11,000 girls in the North-East alone were unhappy with their lives overall, and 26,900 did not feel happy about the way they looked.

In Yorkshire and the Humber, the figure was 58,000 for girls unhappy with their looks, and 23,700 with their lives.

The figures showed that overall more than a third of girls were worried about their appearance, while only a fifth of boys in the same age group were concerned.

The Good Childhood Report, carried out in conjunction with the University of York, showed that girls in this age group had become even more unhappy in the last five years - up to 21 per cent more reported feeling unhappy about their lives.

Rob Jackson, North-East area director at The Children's Society, said: "It is desperately worrying that so many of our young people in the North-East are suffering rather than thriving. Girls are having a particularly tough time and it's clear that concerted action is needed to tackle this problem."

One girl told the Society: "Girls feel pressured by the boys that they should look a particular way and that leads girls into depression or low self-esteem and makes girls feel ugly or worthless."

Another said: "We're expected to be perfect, like Barbie dolls or something and if we don't then we get bullied."

The report finds that emotional bullying such as name-calling, which girls are more likely to experience, was twice as common as physical bullying, which was more likely to affect boys.

At age 12, ten per cent of children overall are "languishing" in lives they feel have little meaning and purpose.

Gwyther Rees, of the University of York's social policy research unit, which collaborated on the report, said more research into wellbeing was being used to shape policy – and that the factors which made adults happy were often quite different to those which made children happy.

He said: "The gender gap in child wellbeing certainly isn't the same in other parts of the world, so it doesn't have to be the way that girls are less happy than boys. Research we carried out last year comparing countries showed there were no gender differences in the same way in, Colombia, for example."

Separate research by the Office for National Statistics suggests that girls are more likely to spend extended periods on social media, which has been linked to a higher risk of mental health problems.