For high school graduation, most parents give their kids a party, a new wardrobe for college, a hefty check, or, if they're very lucky, maybe even a shiny new car.

Not Sydney's mom: Instead, she plans to buy her 17-year-old daughter a brand new nose.

"She wants to get her neck done, and so she wants us to do it together, like a mother-daughter fun thing," Syndey said in a video interview, "like, ‘let's get our faces chopped up, please!'"

Despite her mother's critiques, Sydney is struggling to accept her body exactly the way it is. "I hope that I can be more comfortable in my own figure and my own face, so when I look in the mirror I don't want to change something," she said.

She's not the only one – poor body image and low self-esteem are serious issues for millions of teenage girls all around the world. Bombarded with images of airbrushed celebrities and models with toothpick-sized thighs, many girls believe that they're simply not pretty enough.

Friends and catty classmates don't help, either – Jordyn, also 17, said in an interview that, "when I've gone to school wearing anything close to no makeup, I've had reactions like, ‘Jordyn, are you okay? Are you sick? What's going on?'" To avoid questions and ridicule from her peers, she spends an hour slathering on makeup before going to school every day.

Even Chelsea, 17, a beauty pageant queen, feels constantly insecure: "I've probably looked in the mirror and busted out in tears more times than I can possibly imagine," she said in a video diary.

The problem is so bad that, according to a survey done by The Dove Self-Esteem Fund, when young women look into the bathroom mirror, 40 percent of them can see nothing but their flaws. Many develop eating disorders or struggle with depression. But still, most girls keep silent and put on a veneer of confidence to get them through the tough world of high school, no matter how much they are hurting inside.

Luckily, Sydney, Jordyn, Chelsea, and another 17-year-old, Irene, have unlocked their diaries to the world in order to show other girls that the fears and doubts they're experiencing are perfectly normal. In The Dove Reality Diaries, a six-week online "reality TV" series, the four girls open up about their hopes, dreams, and fears, working with self-esteem expert Jess Weiner to come to terms with their insecurities. Each week, the girls post blog entries and video diaries, and participate in online chats with other teen girls from all around the world. Throughout the course of the show, they each sit down for candid, open conversations with Jess to talk about how to improve their own body images.

The four girls on the show aren't the only ones receiving support, though – the Reality Diaries website offers message boards, quizzes, chats, and plenty of other ways for teen girls to open up about what's going on in their lives and to get a "self-esteem reality check." If you've got a teenage daughter who spends hours in front of the mirror, trying hopelessly to emulate Angelina Jolie, you might just want to point her over to this site. We have a feeling she'll have plenty to relate to – and it might even score you a few brownie points, too.

Original story by Kathryn Hawkins