Last month, a startling fact was revealed about teenage girls: at the age of 14, one in four feels depressed. The Millennium Cohort Study found that levels of depression were similar between girls and boys up to the age of 11. However, at 14, a quarter of girls reported emotional problems, compared to nine per cent of boys. Symptoms included loneliness, feeling unloved and self-hatred.

Meanwhile, new NHS data in September showed that hospital admissions for girls because of self-harm have leapt by two- thirds in the last decade, while the rise among boys was much lower.