FOUR teenage girls who hope to change the attitude of York retailers to body image plan to launch their campaign in the New Year.

The girls from Joseph Rowntree School, in New Earswick, are challenging shopkeepers to promote positive body confidence and replace images of airbrushed models with unaltered pictures of customers within their stores for a week and they will be sending emails out to retailers in January to get them onboard.

As previously reported in The Press, the campaign, which is part of a school project, will see 13-year-old pupils Molly Horner, Lucy Freer, Megan Guest and Alison Coates writing to popular city stores to get them on board.

Molly said the campaign was part of a citizenship project and came about after the girls were walking through town one day and saw only thin, airbrushed photos of models in shop windows.

She said: “It’s taken a bit longer than we had hoped to get organ-ised, but we have now got a final draft of the email ready to send out.

“This is a nationwide issue affect-ing young people all around the country, but we want to tackle it in York to make us one of the leading cities in promoting body confidence.”

Elaine Armstrong, the school's assistant head teacher, said: “I congratulate the students on their initiative.

“This is exactly the kind of active citizenship we encourage in school.”

To get backing for the campaign, Molly wrote to city council leader , James Alexander and the council's chief executive, Kersten England who have both backed the campaign. Coun Alexander said he will be writing to retailers urging them to take part.

Any businesses that would like to get involved can email: york_campaign_for_body_confidence@hotmail.co.uk