Teen magazine Sugar is said to have carried out a survey involving 2,500 girls, aged 13-19 years.

The survey found out that around 155 of the teenage girls went on regular diets if they happened to receive comments from their parents or saw size zero celebrities and the attitudes of friends.

Also girls, whose mothers constantly tried to slim down, were likely to go on diets. It had been found that mothers' attitudes to celebrity body types necessarily had an impact on as the girls were seen to be more focused about their waistline if ever they happened to hear admiring comments about slim stars.

A quarter of the teenage girls are said to have reported a friend with an eating disorder, and more than half asserted that their families were in habit of commenting on whatever they ate. A total of 935 of the girls were found to be very concerned about their size.

Annabel Brog, editor of Sugar "Mums want the best for our daughters, but we live in a world preoccupied with body size, and inevitably daughters are picking up on, and assimilating, anxieties their mums have".