A Study of Self-Esteem

A few weeks ago I started a project delving into the issue of self-esteem.

Young girls face a time of rapid change, growth and challenges and there are a host of dangerous consequences that poor self-worth can initiate (such as depression, eating disorders, self-harm, anxiety, suicide etc.)

Having started up Belle I wanted definitive statistics proving the need for its existence, and that's what I achieved.

There was a lot more interest in the research than expected. There were men and females of all ages keen on giving their response towards the research which resulted in a total of 240 individual responses received. 

The number of male responses, 19-24 year old and 25-30 year old female responses were not sufficient enough to draw conclusions upon, so I will primarily present the findings from females aged 13-18 and the results of females aged 31+. 

In order to make the responses objective, I gave each response a value depending upon the statement itself.  I then added together the scores achieved corresponding to the answers given which correlates to individual's self-esteem; whether it is low or ‘high’. I grouped the numbers into four categories ranging from poor self-esteem to excellent self-esteem dependent on the collective score achieved. This is important because it enables distinguishing between the two extremes of self-esteem. I then reduced the category size again down to two categories being ‘low’ (achieving a score of 50% or less) and ‘other’. I decided to title the category ‘other’ because it’s not justified to title it ‘good’ when it refers to a range of scores from 13 to 24.

The first set of results are from the 62 female respondents aged 13-18, 88.89% of whom consider themselves middle class:

What's worrying is that 13% of the young girls I studied have critical self-esteem along with a phenomenal 31% being poor. 

When reducing down the category size it's evident that almost half of young girls struggle with low self-esteem. This is scary. 

The next set of results are from the 82 female respondents aged 31+, 84.14% of whom consider themselves middle class:

Here it is noticeable that none of the women I studied have critical self-esteem (an improvement), however, the majority of women have only fair self-esteem which is still concerning. 

It is visible that almost 1/5 of women have low self-esteem, still a considerably worrying quantity when the assumption is made that the issues of self-esteem are less existent for this target audience.

In terms of the findings of the open question referring to the respondents views of their self-esteem, what was most indicative was that a significant quantity of respondents replied with a statement along the lines of, “good self-esteem because of Jesus, but decreases with the views of society, the world and people”. 

Additionally, a significant quantity of respondents referred to their self-esteem as being one of the following: “dodgy”, “fluctuates”, “unstable”, “varies”, “dependent”, “up and down”, “shaken” or “fragile”. 

Finally, a lot of respondents recognised that their self-esteem was low (their results coincided with this). 

Of question therefore is what they are doing about this? 

What's being done about this?

What can we do about this?

How can this change?

Let's CHANGE this

This is why Belle exists

Get involved

Being a Christian is NOT about heaven

A few weeks ago I accompanied the Vicar to a school to be subject to interrogation by the young people. One of the questions raised was, “What do you think about life after death?” which initiated a very interesting discussion, some of which I’m going to share with you.

So often as Christians, as followers of Jesus, as ‘believers’ (or as whatever you may call yourself), we walk along in life thinking “GREAT – I believe in God, I believe he’s real, oh I’m so looking forward to this ‘heaven’ place...brilliant!” And yes that may be true but that’s not the point.

Heaven is not what life is all about. We are living NOW. We are in the ‘present’ - the ‘gift’ that is today.

As Christians it is our job now, today, in the present, to bring a little bit (or a lot - why the heck not?!) of heaven down to Earth.

Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV)

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

It’s about being Christ-like in a world that so desperately needs Jesus; being like Jesus in what we say and in what we do; in how we live.

Being a Christian is about being in a personal, living, current relationship with God, it’s not about grabbing a ticket to a life-after-death paradise (though yes that is very exciting!) – it’s about following Jesus today in this world.

Let’s live a life that makes a difference – instead of wallowing in the mess of this world let’s journey with God in bringing light down from heaven and into our screwed up world. 
What a super exciting honour that is!

Let's bring Heaven to Earth today.

I'll keep you posted.