Kids as young as 5 concerned about body image

Nineteen-year-old Juliana Lyons calls herself a “confident girl,” and yet she still strugglesevery daywith body image.

“I change outfits eight times before I leave. I can’t ever find something that I think I look good in,” said Lyons, a freshman at Azusa Pacific University near Burbank, California.

“I’m just really critical of myself, and I think a lot of people struggle with the same thing, too.”

So a year ago, she and her dad, a music and television producer, wrote a song called “Beautifully Flawed” and decided to record it, with Lyons providing the vocals.

At her parents’ urging, she turned the song into a music video, which she directed, filmed and edited, nearly all on her own. The clip features girls as young as 7 looking into the mirror and clearly not liking the blotches, acne, extra body fat and other imperfections they see.

“It’s crazy how we’re so inundated with these images of perfection and … we’re teaching young girls that that’s normal. So people are growing up now with these ideas of how they should look,” said Lyons, who used family and friends as actresses for her short video. (She didn’t want to be in it.)

Lyons, the college singer/songwriter and director, said the response to her video has been overwhelming since she posted it on YouTube a little more than two weeks ago.

Retired Gen. Colin Powell, the former U.S. secretary of state, posted the video on his Facebook page and encouraged parents to share it with their young daughters. (Lyons’ father’s cousin is married to Powell’s daughter, and Powell’s granddaughter appears in the video.)

“I would love to be a positive influence on girls younger than me and just telling them that, ‘Hey, it’s OK that you feel bad about this, but it’s going to be OK,’ ” said Lyons, who hopes she’ll end up working in the music or film industries.

“I think it’s sad we’re so trained to not like what we see in the mirror, but we’re beautiful even though we don’t think don’t we are,” she said.

As Lyons sings in the video, “Someday I know I’ll stand unafraid of who I am, broken and beautifully flawed.”

What do you think is the best way to help young girls and boys build a healthy body image? Share your thoughts with Kelly Wallace on Twitter or CNN Living on Facebook.

CNN