Do you think you're sexy? Only one in 50 women do

Feeling overweight, under-exercised and unattractive after 10 days of seasonal indulgence? Good news: you are not alone.

The first international survey of how women rate their beauty and body image has found that a meagre one in five British females consider themselves to be attractive. And just 2 per cent of Britons felt confident enough to describe themselves as sexy.

The results effectively form a league table of self-esteem, with Brazilian women consistently outperforming almost everyone else: a full 6 per cent are prepared to describe themselves as beautiful compared with a world average of 2 per cent.

Japanese women are consistently the hardest on themselves. British women appear to be most concerned about body weight, with 57 per cent describing it as "too high", a figure topped only by the US.

The groundbreaking study, backed by academics from Harvard University and the London School of Economics, was carried out among 3,200 women aged between 18 and 64 across the 10 countries, which also included the US, Canada, Argentina, Japan, France and Italy.

Entitled "The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report", the survey, also established that nearly half of all questioned said they believed that women who are beautiful have greater opportunities in life.

Dr Susie Orbach of the London School of Economics said the report showed that women want to see the idea of beauty "expanded". She criticised advertisers and the media for perpetuating an unrealistic standard of beauty.

The survey, conducted by New York-based firm StrategyOne, was commissioned by soap manufacturer Dove, which has made a feature of promoting its products with full-figured women rather than professional models.