And now, your cruel self-fulfilling prophecy of the day — teenage girls who wrongly think they’re too fat are much more likely than their peers with undistorted body images to become overweight twentysomethings. In other words, having crappy self esteem when you’re a kid is now something that can produce long-term health effects. Where, oh where could this body image mangling come from? The study, conducted by Norwegian researchers collected data on 1,200 individuals when they were teens, and then again 11 years later as adults. Teen participants were asked to comment on how they perceived themselves on a scale of thin to “chubby” or “very fat.” Fast forward to a decade and change later, and 60 percent of the normal sized girls in the study who thought they were fat had actually gone on to become overweight twentysomethings.
