Women Criticise Themselves An Average Of Eight Times A Day

Think you need to lose weight? Wrong. Here's why you need to start being nicer to yourself

A survey has found that women criticise themselves an average of eight times a day – and half of those women started doing so from 9.30am in the morning, continuing throughout the day.

Of the 2,000 women surveyed, the most common criticisms included being overweight, having bad hair and not earning enough money.

As well as that, many were also unable to take a compliment, with 89 per cent saying they would never compliment themselves in the same way they did with their friends.

Almost half of the women also said they never compliment themselves, with the rest only giving themselves a single pat on the back throughout the day.

Zoe Griffiths, Head of Public Health and Programme at Weight Watchers says, ‘Our research has shown that being unkind to ourselves has been an underlying theme for women for many years, but a set of very modern cultural conditions have increased the intensity of this unkindness which are hard to avoid.’

These ‘modern cultural conditions’ Zoe refers to are of course the perfect – and pretty unrealistic – lives and photos we all see every day on social media.

The 20 most common criticisms are:

1. You’re too fat/overweight 2. Your hair is a mess 3. Your belly looks big 4. You don’t do enough exercise 5. Feeling scruffy next to other women 6. Not earning enough money 7. You say you are having a ‘fat day’ 8. Not wearing certain items of clothing because you think you can’t pull it off 9. You wish you were as photogenic as other women on social media 10. You deflect compliments by saying something negative about yourself 11. You worry people are talking about you behind your back 12. Feeling underdressed 13. I’m not stylish enough 14. You don’t have sex with your partner enough 15. You aren’t as creative as other women 16. Your bum looks big 17. You aren’t as organised as other women 18. You don’t spend as much time with your friends as you should 19. You’re not wearing enough make-up 20. You aren’t attractive to your partner

Do you agree with any of the above statements? Join us in challenging society with our #BREAKFREE campaign - we're going to break free from the big things that make us feel small and that make us feel like we're still not good enough.

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