Eighty-one girls aged between five and eight took part in the study, which examined the extent to which girls' dislike of their bodies, and in particular a desire to be thinner, is due to peer influence.
The study found that 47 per cent of the group wanted to be thinner.
Although the reception class children showed little dissatisfaction with their bodies, 71 per cent of the seven- to eight-year-olds said they wanted to be thinner, indicating that children's awareness of dieting and body image develops over the first two years at school.
Co-author of the report Hayley Dohnt said, 'Peer influence, which has been investigated extensively for adolescents but has been assumed as more or less irrelevant for young children, may in fact be particularly salient for this age group.'