The Telegraph reports:

Girls are feeling under pressure to please boys while boys believe they must sleep with several girls to fit in [according to a study] written by clinical psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos for the Home Office.

She said: “Little boys are always told ‘aren’t you clever, aren’t you strong’. Little girls are told ‘aren’t you pretty?’ even in 2010.

“They are adhering to what society expects and internalising behaviours.”

Dr Papadopoulos cited the example of the computer game Miss Bimbo, where the aim of the game is to accumulate boob jobs and marry a billionaire.

The Evening Standard has reported further details of what the report will recommend:

Her Home Office report will recommend a labelling system for media images and adverts that have been airbrushed. Age limits could be placed on lads’ magazines such as Zoo and Nuts that are full of provocative images of women, she suggests…

She said: “We are hypersexualising girls, telling them that their desirability relies on being desired. They want to please at any cost. And we are hypermasculinising boys — many feel that they can’t live up to the porn ideal, sleeping with lots of women.

“If I am constantly told that a sexy girl is one who satisfies a lot of men, do I really have a choice?”

It looks as if her finding will echo the views of a group of 44 academics who are lobbying the Advertising Standards Authority to change the rules on adverts featuring airbrushed models, following the publication of a research paper which says that such advertisements encourage eating disorders and self-harm. And of course they echo the party’s policy paper adopted last autumn which calls for airbrushed photographs to be clearly labelled, and for airbrushing to be banned in adverts aimed at children.