A quarter of all 14-year-old girls has self-harmed

ONE in four girls aged 14 has self harmed, Children’s Society researchers found as the charity claimed that girls are more unhappy than boys at school for the first time.

Using data based on a survey of 11,000 people, the society estimated that nearly 110,000 children aged 14 – 76,000 girls and 33,000 boys – may have self-harmed across the UK during the course of one year.

Matthew Reed, chief executive at The Children’s Society, said the findings were “deeply worrying”.

The data also shows that girls are less happy than boys with school life, a reversal of earlier trends that showed girls have been happier than boys since 2003.

The charity analysed data from the Understanding Society survey, which includes children between 11 and 15. They were asked to rank their happiness with various aspects of life out of 10.

The overall happiness gap between girls and boys has also widened significantly, with the most recent data showing that boys rate their lives as 8.17 out of 10 on average while the average for girls was 7.8.

Girls are still significantly happier than boys with their schoolwork, which suggests that the social side is causing them unhappiness.

Mr Reed told The Daily Telegraph: “We hear a lot about how the pressure cooker of exams impacts upon children but we found that girls were happier than boys with their school work.

“This suggests something else may be affecting how girls feel about school. We found that jokes and comments in school about looks and sexual activity, and sharing of photos or videos of classmates’ bodies all had a big impact on girls.

“Maybe some boys feel this kind of attention boosts their ‘street-cred’, but this is not true of girls.

“These things made girls feel much worse about their appearance and their life as a whole, and may help explain why they are more likely to feel depressed or to selfharm.”