People should be focusing on positive personality traits rather than appearance when complimenting children – especially when it comes to young girls.
Psychotherapist and author Stella O'Malley was speaking after a new survey found that girls as young as seven feel they're held to different beauty standards than boys.
The findings from Girlguiding in the UK reveal that appearance pressures are one of the biggest concerns amongst girls, with many considering cosmetic procedures in their future.
The research shows girls are finding their own negative thoughts about their looks to be all consuming, and over half (59%) of girls aged 11-21 say that these thoughts are negatively impacting their confidence.
Girls as young as seven say they feel they are held to a different beauty standard than boys of their age, and that they face more appearance-based scrutiny.
More than one-in-three (34%) girls aged 7-10 years feel there are different expectations of how they should look, compared to boys of their age – an 11% increase compared to 10 years ago.
Ms O'Malley told Newstalk Breakfast a compliment can become a paradox in itself.
"It's an extraordinary paradox that the more you tell somebody [that] they're gorgeous the more they, kind of, check themselves to see if they are," she said.
"There are so many photos everywhere on Facebook, Instagram and [other] places [and] kids, more than ever, are being told 'You're gorgeous' – and girls get it way more than boys.
"Boys tend to be told 'You're a big strong boy' while girls are almost reflexively told they're stunning or they're gorgeous".
'Thinking about their looks'
Ms O'Malley says it usually starts at a very young age.
"If you looked at photos today of babies, the comments underneath would be [that] the girl is gorgeous, beautiful, stunning - all of those words are constantly being labeled on them," she said.
"As a result, naturally because they're human, they start thinking about their looks because society has told them that their looks are the most important part of them.
"Boys don't get it quite as much; they are told that they're handsome but they're told lots of other things."
Ms O'Malley said there's no malice behind it but it is continuous.
"It's the relentlessness of it; it's the combination of everybody commenting on it," she said.
"If, all day today, people said to you that you're looking well, you'd start becoming more vain, you'd start looking in the mirror but you'd also start becoming anxious about it.
"It's meant incredibly well - it's basically the compliment you give to your friends who have kids - but the actual net result is an extraordinary pressure from society that they should be gorgeous."
Behaviour and anxiety
Ms O'Malley said the damage caused is inadvertent but it's there.
"Look at the mental health of teenage girls; look at the rates of anorexia, look at the rates of all the self-harming behaviour and anxiety that they have," she said.
"They're complimented to the ends of the Earth but [compliments are] not actually working very well".
Ms O'Malley said people would be better to comment on children's positive traits rather than their appearance.
"You'd be much better off saying, 'That's a pretty dress, look at your runners, aren't you a brave girl doing this'.
"It's much more healthy to comment on what they're actually doing than their looks".
Ms O'Malley added that boys seem to be following girls "into that rabbit hole" on social media.
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