Too fat, too thin, ugly skin, smelly feet, fluffy hair or crazy breasts: everyone is sometimes insecure about his or her body. This uncertainty is often the most intense during puberty because you go through major physical changes. Recognizable? In this article you can read where your insecurity comes from and what you should do about it.

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Puberty is a period that begins and ends at different times for each teenager. The intensity of this period is also different for everyone. It is generally said by scientists that puberty begins around age 11 in girls and around age 13 in boys. What happens during puberty is that your body changes on the outside and the inside.

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Everything changes under the guidance of all kinds of different hormones: Girls get breasts, hair in their pubic area, armpits and on their legs. Girls also have their first period. Boys get pubic hair, beard growth and a lower voice. Their penis and balls also grow and they sometimes have spontaneous ejaculation. Both girls and boys grow quickly during puberty, so it is logical that as an adolescent you have to get used to your longer legs, lower voice or larger breasts. Some teenagers grow up to 12 centimeters a year!

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Hunger and growth marks
This gigantic growth does not go without a struggle. First of all, growing teenagers are always hungry, because your body can use all the building materials hard. Unfortunately, growing pains are also part of it for some teenagers. This is often a short, stabbing pain, especially in the legs. Annoying and painful, but fortunately not harmful. Some people have a lasting memory of the growth spurt, namely stretch marks (or stretch marks). These are stripes in the skin because the skin has stretched while growing. In the beginning, these stripes are often purple or red, later they become paler and form lines. Growth stripes often do not disappear completely.

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Changing brain
The above things change on the outside of your body and this is something that may make you (temporarily) insecure. At the same time, things change on the inside during puberty. Your brain changes and you learn to look at things differently. For example, where your parent(s) or caregiver(s) first played an important role, your focus now shifts to your peers and friends. There is a good chance that you often disagree (read: fight) with your parent(s) and both you and your parent will have to get used to that. So you start looking around more to peers for validation and approval, but all the teens you look at are also changing. One gets the beard in the throat on zu2019n 11th, the other on zu2019n 17th and that makes comparisons quite tiring and frightening.

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Am I actually normal?
Insecurity about your changing body is not crazy at all. The u2018 am I actually normal?u2019 question is a question that every young person asks himself at some point. Will I grow even more or will I stay this length? Is it normal that my breasts are still so small compared to other girls in class? Why do I already grow beard and all my friends don’t yet? Why am I the only one in the class who hasn’t been in love yet? These kinds of questions are (unfortunately) part of puberty and your friends ask themselves the same questions.

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100 courses against uncertainty
Getting rid of your insecurity is complicated. If you search on Google, there are hundreds of courses offered by people who tell you to make you super confident in a few steps. Yet insecurity is something that sometimes suddenly returns, even in people who have long since gone through puberty. A golden tip that comes back in every course and with every psychologist? To share. Tell what you’re unsure about, if necessary try it against yourself in the mirror first. When you’re insecure, you think the worst thing that could happen is people finding out you have sweaty armpits, uneven breasts, or crazy belly hair. The moment you take the terrifying step of telling, you notice that the other person doesn’t laugh out loud at you or never want to talk to you again. It is even likely that you feel less lonely and that the other person also feels the space to share his or her insecurity. And being insecure together is already much better than alone.