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Study: Clothing For Pre-Teens Is Becoming Sexier

LOS ANGELES (KFWB) — If you have a young daughter, you may have already noticed this... clothing for pre-teen girls is becoming sexier.

A study led by Sarah Murnen, a psychology professor at Kenyon College in Ohio, looked at 15 national stores and found that one-third of outfits for pre-teens is sexualized.

"Well across all of the stores and the clothing items, there are more than 5,000 items that we examined, about 30% had sexualizing characteristics. We did divide it into types of stores and the tween stores were the worst," Murnen told KFWB News 980.

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"Our definition of sexualizing what is the clothing item emphasize or reveal the sexualized body part or such had characteristics associated with sexiness like a red, satin, lingerie-looking dress… or very short skirts that would emphasize long legs," Murnen added.

Murnen said a student, who is working with her on the research, found that fourth and fifth-grade girls who were wearing sexualized clothing exhibited lower body esteem and less perceived popularity.

"About 10 percent in these grades were wearing this clothing on this particular day when we tested them, which was in the winter."

The study's next step is to examine the affect such clothing has on pre-teen girls.

"But we do think that this does have affects on girls. It encourages them to focus too much attention on their body at such a young age, you know, and to look at themselves as sexual objects potentially which might limit other roles in their lives."

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