Body Image Statistics

So, over here, at http://www.colorado.edu/, they explain some interesting statistics on body issues and images among a group surveyed. For example, in 1998, the average age for a girl to start dieting was eight- 8- years old. Don't most girls still think boys have cooties at eight years old? Who the hell is telling them they're fat when they should be climbing trees and throwing rocks at boys? Seriously! Though it doesn't specify what age group this refers to, young girls are more afraid, as a whole of those surveyed, of getting fat than of losing their parents, cancer or nuclear war. How and what- if anything- are we teaching these girls in way of priority if they are this frightened of gaining weight? Despite the fact that two thirds of dieters regain the lost weight within a single year, somehow, between diet foods, programs, drugs and other diet products, the diet industry rakes in more than 40 billion dollars every year- and the estimate continues climbing. In a single year, we are feeding an industry which provides virtually no lasting results more than twice what our government spent weeks approving to bail out the entire automotive industry.
Tell me this is not proof of painfully skewed values amongst the average person, and watch me laugh in your face.