HAS Rebecca Adlington had a nose job? Don’t know.

Does it matter? Yes, quite a lot actually.

If she has and it’s given her a little bit extra bounce and courage and confidence to face the world, then good for her. Probably. It’s all the other girls I worry about.

Rebecca herself, of course, should be supremely confident already – a double gold medal winner at 19, retired at 23, with a body that looks good and does amazing things in water. She also has enormous qualities of hard work, determination and resilience, long blonde hair, an OBE and a fiance. Sigh...

Yet we saw so clearly on I’m a Celebrity… how vulnerable she was as she compared herself to model Amy Willerton. And if Rebecca Adlington feels vulnerable, then what hope for the rest?

This week we heard about an apparent “epidemic” of anorexia among girls at some of the country’s top schools – and plenty of ordinary schools too.

It’s part of a growing sense of the increased amount of stress, eating disorders, self-harming and other mental health issues among teenagers, as nothing less than perfection is considered good enough.

And it’s not just girls. Boys are just as likely to try to match unrealistic standards.

Pressure all around has piled relentlessly onto our teenagers.

And that was even before the casual cruelty of social media.

To be successful girls have to look amazing, be good at sports, play the flute and spend their weekends being the equivalent of Mother Teresa. Sportswomen are expected to be able to double up as models too, not just honed and toned, but glamorous too.

Remember cyclist Victoria Pendleton posing naked?

Years ago, just being good at one thing was more than enough – so although we all wanted to be like the girls who wore the shortest skirts and make-up to school and always had a gang of boys waiting at the school gates for them – we accepted our humbler roles as being clever, or sporty, or good with animals/babies/making rock cakes or collecting the inkwells. No one aspired to be good at the lot. If you were good at just one, you were pretty pleased with yourself.

Which is probably why I didn’t know a single girl with an eating disorder while I was at school, and only one at university But now the pressure’s on.

We can tell our daughters and granddaughters they’re beautiful, talented, clever and wonderful just as they are.

The tricky part is getting them to believe it.

A 13-year-old boy killed himself when he realised he’d that in four days he had run up more than £400 buying extras for games on his X Box, a bill his family couldn’t afford to pay.

It’s amazingly easy to do, even absolutely unwittingly.

So talk to your children, check what they’re doing, keep your credit card details locked deep in your heart – because a huge and unpayable bill might be the least of the tragedies.

IN a bid to beat the travel price hikes in school holidays, MPs have suggested that counties stagger school holiday dates.

And we know what would happen then, don’t we? All the extended holiday dates would be more expensive too.

There will be more losers – and it won’t be the holiday trade.