Among all the tough aspects of being a teenager, one of the hardest must be the issue of body image. Teenagers devote much attention to how they are perceived by others.

Body image is the way we see ourselves and how we feel in our bodies. Even though both boys and girls can develop issues with their body image, girls are by far more notorious for struggling with this important issue. In our culture, girls feel as though they are being judged solely by how they look.

A 1991 survey by the American Association of University Women tells us how adolescent girls strongly believe that their physical appearance gives them a sense of self and basically determines who they are. This kind of perception makes our society seem superficial; giving us the impression that appearance can determine who we are.

Cultural and personal factors, but especially the cultural ones, greatly influence the way adolescent girls feel about their physical appearance. Everywhere we look, we are surrounded with media portraying a woman's image in ways that girls feel they have to imitate in order to obtain happiness. However, they are completely ignoring the fact that there are many tricks to making women in those magazines look the way they do.

Often times, young women obsessively compare themselves to these images, thus developing negative feelings regarding their own self-image. Yet, these images may affect a teenage girl's health because they can lead to poor eating habits, extreme dieting and possibly depression.

Because this is a psychological problem in our society, finding solutions can be complicated. From a very early age, girls should be taught to love their bodies and accept themselves the way they are.

America's Mental Health Channel offers a solution for this issue based on "The Three A's" -- Attention, Appreciation and Acceptance. Attention refers to listening to your body and knowing its needs, Appreciation talks about never taking for granted what your body does for you and Acceptance sums everything up by telling us to learn to love ourselves just the way we are, focusing only on the beautiful.

We were created different for a reason. We are all unique with something beautiful about each and every single one of us! For who I am