Bloomberg — Girls are sexualised “in virtually every form of media,” leading to emotional and self-image problems that include eating disorders and depression, according to the American Psychological Association.Dolls and thongs sold at outlets for children, as well as highly sexualised portrayals in magazines, on TV and in advertising, are “creating an environment in which being female becomes nearly synonymous with being a sexual object,” said a report made public today by a task force of psychologists.

If a girl identifies herself as being primarily a sexual object, both her academic performance and her mental health suffers, the group said. The report linked that identification with increases in the use of plastic surgery, smoking in teenaged girls and failure to use condoms during sex.

“What’s disturbing is the extent to which we have allowed the culture to sell to our daughters such a narrow view of what they’re worth and what they’re valuable for,” said Tomi-Ann Roberts, a professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs and a co-author of the report, in a telephone interview yesterday.

The increased cigarette use among surveyed teenaged girls may occur because girls feel cigarettes will help them control their weight, the report said.

Women deemed “sexy” are also more likely to be discriminated against when applying for skilled jobs, though not if they were applying to be receptionists, the report said.

“I’m hoping that not just parents of girls and people who care about girls will take an interest but parents of boys as well,” said lead author Eileen Zurbriggen, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in a telephone interview yesterday. “We would like parents of boys to also critically examine this phenomenon and think about how it’s affecting their sons.”

Men are more likely to experience satisfaction with their romantic relationships when they do not hold beliefs related to the objectification of women, according to the report.

The report even goes so far as to analyse athletic activities by teenaged girls, noting that concerns about appearance can limit how well they throw a ball.

The extent to which girls were concerned about their bodies’ appearance predicted poorer performance on throwing, leading the researchers to conclude that sexualisation “limits the form and effectiveness of girls’ physical movements.”

Appearing alongside the report on the APA website is a fact sheet targeted at concerned parents. Parents are encouraged to talk to their daughters about the choices girls make in clothing, or to say when they think something on television is objectionable in the way it portrays women.

Girls should also be taught other ways to think about identity, said Zurbriggeni, including extracurricular activities such as “sports, religious activities, to help girls engage in their identity,” she said.

Parents’ and educators’ anecdotal observations of culture spurred the study, said Roberts. “We wanted to see if those concerns were something real,” she said.

“We found that the idealised image was increasingly sexy. We might have said idealised womanhood was domestic in the 1950s, but now it’s sexiness,” she said.