In more than three decades of working with women’s bodies, the one change that stands out is the increasing self-consciousness of young teens who visit us for fittings. In the past, mums would simply accompany them into trial spaces and be active participants in choosing what was best for them. Not only is this rare these days, but it’s also commonplace for mums to request us to speak to their girls to even agree to a fitting; of course, with the mum not being within a mile of the trial area!

Smart young teens of today are far more aware than the mothers of yore. But it isn’t easy to understand what makes these contemporary kids so acutely self-conscious as well. It’s true that the idea of disciplining children has changed. Yet this alone can’t explain the self-consciousness.

So what is it with these seemingly contradictory kids? Studies at Harvard University have revealed links between self-consciousness and the growing up years of learning how to be social.

Social rules are learned best through feedback from peers and this is where the problem begins.

“It all depends on what enhances belonging…,” says Alexandra Rodman of Harvard University. The pressure to fit in is huge, more so in the age of an omnipresent social media. Seoka Salstrom, a clinical psychologist from Hanover, adds that “before social media, we had half of our day at school and half of our day at home or with a few friends, but we didn’t have 45 people that we were interacting with… oftentimes in picture perfect form. Every time we see something like that, our mind is automatically geared toward, ‘How do I fit into this?’ ”

It’s not easy to be watched day in and day out. From an age when peer evaluation began and ended at best at the school gate, and when parents were more than willing to pull up their wards for crimes hardly committed, times have changed. Peer watching infiltrates every possible sphere of the lives of these youngsters. And most parents now are themselves living life vicariously through their children.

Tests done by Leah Somerville, also at Harvard University, found “that being watched, and to some extent anticipating being watched, were sufficient to elicit self-conscious emotional responses at each level of measurement.”

As if this wasn’t enough, a middle school in Memphis, US, offered in writing to parents of young teens that the school was tying up with a lingerie brand to offer shapewear to girls to help them improve their body image. Thanks to the furious reaction of the parents the programme was called off.

One day, hopefully, peer watching will also be called out and cancelled.

The columnist is the founder-CEO of Necessity-SwatiGautam, a customised brand of brassieres. Contact: necessityswatigautam@gmail.com