When it comes to body dissatisfaction, peers have a much bigger influence on teenage girls than television or social media, a new study suggests.

The role of the media in relation to body image and eating disorders remains a contentious one. Some believe that being bombarded with images of thin celebrities can lead to serious body confidence issues, while others believe there is not enough concrete evidence of this.

US scientists decided to investigate this further. They asked almost 250 girls, aged 10-17, to rate the attractiveness of the female characters in their three favourite television programmes.

They were also asked about their use of social media.

The girls were then asked how they felt about their own bodies. This included questions on body image, eating disorders, feelings of inferiority (peer competition) and satisfaction with life overall.

Six months later, over 100 of the girls were asked the same questions.

The scientists from Texas found that when it came to body dissatisfaction, television and social media did not appear to influence the girls' views. However peer competition did.

Furthermore, while television and social media did not appear to predict symptoms of eating disorders, peer competition did, but only in the long-term, not the short-term.

"Our results suggest that only peer competition, not television or social media use, predict negative outcomes for body image. This suggests that peer competition is more salient to body and eating issues in teenage girls," the scientists concluded.

However, they acknowledged that social media may ‘provide a new arena for peer competition, even if it does not directly influence negative body outcomes'.

Detail of these findings are published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.