We want to be just like Jordan: Shocking stories of teens who want to follow in the glamour model's footsteps

By Barbara Davies

We wannabe famous: Amy, 13, and Natalie, 13

Most people find it hard to believe that Amy Lewis is 13. At first glance, it's not hard to see why. The excessively coiffed hair, the spray tan, the false eyelashes, the make-up, the talon-like acrylic nails, all speak of someone far older.

Amy, of course, is rather pleased with this state of affairs. Her idol is glamour model and reality TV star Jordan (real name Katie Price) a pneumatic-chested mother-of-three who, as we shall see, has developed a grip on the minds of the nation's young teenage girls.

'She is both gorgeous and very bright,' enthuses Amy, the daughter of a construction worker and a hairdresser from Hucknall in Nottinghamshire. 'She has used her looks to make a lot of money and that's what I want to do, too. She is my role model and lots of my friends aspire to be like her.'

Worryingly, Amy's outlook is far from unusual and, most alarming of all, is becoming increasingly prevalent among middle-class girls, children who have traditionally aspired to a university education and a respectable career.

Charity administrator's daughter Natalie Halls is just 14, but as she says of Jordan: 'She's really pretty, she's got a handsome husband, three kids, loads of houses and money  -  that's why I want to be like her.

'She's got the perfect life  -  a career in modelling and on TV, plus books and other things. And she's always in magazines looking pretty.'

And 13-year-old Maria Daly, who has wanted to be like Jordan since she was ten years old, adds: 'Jordan's strong and keeps going until she gets what she wants. That's what I'm going to be like.'

A depressing state of affairs, even more so when Maria's mother, Sharon, a 46-year-old nurse from Birmingham, chips in: 'I actually believe that Jordan is a really good role model for my daughter and I'd love Maria to be a model. Jordan is one of the most straight-talking celebrities in the world.

'She's got lots of different careers and she's a working mum. She works especially hard with her son Harvey, who is disabled.'

So how did it come to this? That an entire generation of intelligent young women, watched happily by their mothers, are modelling themselves on a woman who has made a career out of a pair of inflated breasts, a ruthlessly stagemanaged career in soft porn and a tumultuous and highly sɛҳuąƖ relationship with her husband, singer Peter Andre  -  not to mention her forays into the literary world.

Social commentators say that self-made multimillionaire Katie Price, who has successfully marketed herself as a brand, is viewed by many young women as a feminist icon.

 
There is little doubt that this dual role is sending out dangerously mixed messages.

The same, too, applies to Price's forays into authorship. She writes for very young girls, with her Perfect Ponies books  -  as well as for an older market. The fact that all her books, which are ghost-written, are best-sellers, does not detract from their questionable literary quality.

These, it is safe to say, are exactly the kinds of book which are going to be devoured by teenagers who have also pored over her two best-selling autobiographies.

Any mother with an ounce of sense might be expected to steer her daughter firmly away from such questionable influences. But not so the mothers of Amy, Natalie and Maria who, one might think, as educated women would know better.

Amy Lewis's parents are divorced and she lives with her brother Liam, 21, and her 45-year-old father Stephen, but her mother, 37-year-old hairdresser Mary Montgomery, is happily saving up to pay for a breast enlargement for her daughter, who proudly announces she is already a 32DD.

Speaking with a candour that fails to mask her naivety, 13-year-old Amy says: 'I think that to be successful these days you have to make yourself stand out, and having a boob job and wearing lots of make-up and sexy clothes gets you noticed. I quite enjoy school, but I'd like to leave and start modelling as soon as I can.'

It is clear, too, that, bombarded by celebrity images in magazines and on television, young girls are being indoctrinated from a young age.

'I have been mad about clothes, hair and make-up from the age of eight,' says Amy, who has had a boyfriend for the past nine months.

'I read OK! and Heat magazine and I model the way I look on the celebrities in there. I put on lots of make-up, have my hair done by Mum at least once a month and Mum also pays for me to have spray tans. I also have my acrylic nails done every month, and Mum gives me facials.

'When I am getting ready to go out, I spend loads of time on my face and hair, getting my look just right. I also love to put on false eyelashes, and I know that I turn heads when I walk down the street. Often, people are really amazed that I am only 13.

'I am desperate to have a boob job like Jordan, and both Mum and I are saving up. I have read all of Jordan's books, and I love her style.

'My ultimate aim is to be a glamour model, which is why I want a breast enlargement. I don't think I am too young to look the way I do.'

'I think it's the celebrity culture, and all these magazines they read,' says Mary, apparently divesting herself of all responsibility for her daughter's actions. 'Amy is absolutely besotted with Jordan. She is her total idol.

'Sometimes it worries me how Amy looks  -  she'll walk down the stairs in tiny shorts and high heels and I'll say: "You can't go out like that!"

'But she says all her friends wear clothes like this, and when I went to pick her up from a teenagers' nightclub I could not believe how old all these little 13-year-olds looked.'

She recalls one particularly disturbing incident when she allowed her daughter to go out wearing skimpy denim hot pants because 'her friends all had them and I didn't want her to feel left out'.

She says: 'Amy went out wearing the hot pants with her 16-year-old sister Laura and three men tried to grab her. It was only when Laura screamed "She's only 13, get off her!" that they ran off.

'It frightened me to death and has made me realise that I can't encourage her to dress like Jordan while she's still so young because it attracts attention from men who don't realise she's only a child.'

Nevertheless, she insists: 'I'll happily pay for a boob job when the time comes, although she's pretty well endowed already. She always turns heads in the street, and that worries me, but what can you do?

'She's not been into bikes and playing out since she was about seven  -  it's all clothes, magazines and makeup. At the end of the day, it's up to her. It's her life and she is very determined. She wants to follow in Jordan's footsteps. She loves all the luxury and the glamour and she wants that life for herself.'

There appears to be no suggestion that there might be an alternative when it comes to providing role models for the nation's vulnerable teenage girls  - God forbid they might want to doctors or lawyers. Maria Daly's mother Sharon says her daughter believes that Jordan has perfect life'.

'Maria wants to look like Jordan and to have the money and  fame she's got,' she says.

'Young girls up to the celebrities on TV and in magazines. I recently found something Maria had written which said: "I wish I was pretty, I wish I had big boobs and I wish I had a husband like Peter Andre."'

Listening to the girls themselves, it becomes depressingly clear that Britain's celebrity-driven culture is creating a generation of highly-sɛҳuąƖised young teenage girls, who equate happiness and fulfilment with looks and money.

Maria, who is not in touch with her father, explains: 'I didn't even know Jordan was until she was on I'm celebrity Get Me Out Of Here when I was ten. I thought she was gorgeous and really funny, too.

'Then when she got together with Peter Andre and they made a TV series together I always watched it. I think she's a good role model because she makes it clear that you have to work hard to make lots of money.'

Education, tragically, appears to count for very little.

'When I'm 16, I'm going to get a part-time job so that I can save up for a boob job. I'll also get £30-a-week grant from the local authority as an incentive to stay on and do my Alevels, so I'll save that money towards the surgery too,' says Maria.

Her mother adds: 'As soon as Maria gets home from school, off goes the uniform and on go the low-cut tops and short skirts. When she gets to 16 and no longer needs my consent to have a boob job, I don't see that there's much I can do to stop her.'

Natalie Halls' mother, 52-year-old charity administrator Susan, from Barkingside, Essex, even admits to sharing her daughter's admiration for Jordan.

'I see her on the TV series with her husband Peter and I think: "Wow! She's in control, isn't she?!" She's very strong and forthright and she's obviously very successful. No wonder Natalie wants to be like her.'

But she admits: 'I do worry that she's being sɛҳuąƖised too young, like a lot of girls her age, because of this whole celebrity culture where they want to be like the grown women in magazines. I see some girls and wonder how their mums can let them out the house dressed the way they are.

'I'm actually glad she looks to Jordan as a role model and not the likes of Kate Moss or Amy Winehouse. I would hate her to idolise women who've been openly linked with drugs.

'I don't know whether a career in modelling is achievable for Natalie, but I'll support her because that's what she really wants and she looks up to Jordan because she was so determined that she achieved her dreams.'

Susan, who is divorced from Natalie's business manager father, admits that her own role models as a teenager were very different: 'I looked up to my teachers and not to female celebrities.

'We didn't have the same sort of celebrity culture there is today and I don't remember any of my friends or I longing to be famous. But Natalie and her friends love Jordan and they have grown up so much more quickly than I had at that age.'

The 'she's mature for her age' excuse appears to be one that is all too frequently used in regard to today's teenage girls.

And the tragedy is that nobody (certainly not their own mothers) seems prepared to offer them something else to aspire to.

Taking all these factors into account, Britain's appalling track record on teenage pregnancy should be no surprise.

It's hard, too, not to feel that some women are living vicariously through their daughters, believing that their looks are somehow the key to a better life. Otherwise, why aren't they doing more to try to slow down this helter-skelter into pseudoadulthood?

'Maria's obsession with Jordan has cost me hundreds of pounds being ripped off by model agencies which charged me a fortune for

Maria to have professional photos taken for her portfolio,' says her mother Sharon.

'They promised her lots of work, only for nothing to come of it. Maria's a natural in front of the camera and has such a cute face that I feel sure she can make it in modelling. But I've had to put a stop to these photo shoots because I couldn't afford it.'

In the meantime, until society finds another way to inspire them, more and more girls like Amy, Natalie and Maria will continue to put girlhood aside at the earliest opportunity and set about transforming themselves into Jordan Juniors.

Some would argue that their choice of role model is symptomatic of a greater malaise at the heart of British culture  -  the belief that money, looks and success are the key to happiness and contentment.

'I hope Maria does make a success of modelling,' says Sharon. 'I want all three of my kids to have a better life than I've had, working long hours as a nurse just to make ends meet.'

But, in truth, what young girls like these really need to be happy is a healthy dose of self-esteem  -  something which goes far deeper than plastic surgery, fake tan and hair extensions.

Sadly, as experience shows, celebrity magazines and reality TV shows are the last place they are likely to find that.