Sexualization of Children through the Media Essay

Have you ever noticed walking into a large shopping complex and seeing children as young as 6 years old wearing midriff bearing t-shirts and short skirts? And wondered to yourself why the younger generation of today portray themselves like that and why their parents allow it. It all goes back to the strong impact that sexualization portrayed in media and marketing has on everybody in today’s society especially young children from toddlers to late teens, both girls and boys. They see it everywhere from movies/television shows, magazines, clothing, computer games, toys, the music industry and of course the internet. Children are influenced by media–they learn by observing, imitating, and making behaviors their own (APA, 2001, p.1224).†¦show more content†¦smoking, promiscuity to be in the ‘popular/cool’ crowds, cyber-bully, gangs, starving themselves to ‘thin’ – children observe all things and look up to their peers, wanting to be like them. â€Å"The sexualization of child ¬hood is having a profoundly disturbing impact on children’s understanding of gender, sexuality, and relationships.† (So Sexy So Soon, pg. 7) What is the fashion world coming to? Shopping for clothing is getting very difficult now that children’s clothing all seem to be getting increasingly too tight, body-fitting, low-cut, too short and smaller than the original sizes. Clothing stores such as Kmart and Target are selling Barbie and Dora Explorer padded bras for 6 year olds - that is kindergarten age, it’s crazy! T-shirts and other clothing designed with slogans and sexualized images that say things like â€Å"eye candy†, â€Å"bad girl†, â€Å"so many boys, so little time†, â€Å"Mr. Pimp† and â€Å"chick magnet†, it’s slogans like these that are showing the wrong label and titles for children of all ages. What’s even crazier is that parents actually by these fashion clot hing for their children. And unfortunately some parents also don’t understand the cause that the media is having and aswell are encouraging children to enter modeling and pageants to the extent of making the children diet, dye hair, wear overly huge amounts of thick makeup, pushup/padded bras, highShow MoreRelatedMedia s Growing Sexualization Of Women1402 Words   |  6 Pagesflip through a fashion magazine, it is very likely you will presented with many displays of hypersexualization of girls and women in advertising images and in media. There are many components to sexualization. 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