Too Sexy Too Soon! PART I – Should Girls As Young As 9 Be Taken To Get Their Legs Waxed?

There has been an increasing amount of concern amongst health professionals regarding the rise of “tweenage” culture, the target marketing of pre-adolescent children, particularly girls, with clothing and cultural images that seem to be pushing them towards adulthood way too early. The following newspaper articles from this weekend’s newspapers highlight this disturbing trend, and offer up some food for thought for parents.

Source for both articles: news.com.au

PARENTS are sending girls as young as nine to have painful beauty treatments.

Beauticians say that young children are being brought into salons by parents to undergo painful hair removal treatments.

NSW Community Services Minister Linda Burney criticised the paractice, and although she stopped short of calling it abuse, she said that mothers should not force their daughters to mature too quickly.

“Most people would be pretty aghast that girls as young as nine would feel that they need to have their legs waxed,” Ms Burney said.

“It raises the broader issue of children growing up too quickly and brings up the issue of sexualisation of children. Children should be allowed to be children and not feel they need to emulate what they see in gossip magazines and the advertising industry.”

She warned that the sexualisation of young girls through such beauty treatments could lead to depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

Parents needed to use common sense in deciding when the right time was to allow their child to wax, but there was also an onus on the beauty industry, although regulation was not the answer, she said.

“At the end of the day, it is really on the proprietor to make a particular decision about whether they will allow that client in the salon,” Ms Burney said.

Bullied

Ms Burney said that there may be exceptional circumstances, for example, if a child was being teased or bullied because they were particularly hairy.

Child sexualisation expert and humanities and social science lecturer at Charles Sturt University, Emma Rush, said she was “disturbed” parents were taking young children to have the procedure.

“It might seem like a nice thing to do for a little girl, but not at that age. Mid-teens, sure. Children aged nine or younger have not got the cognitive (capacity). They don’t have the need for it. There is the question of whether they are ready to cope with the attention that can attract,” Dr Rush said.

She said girls in primary schools were now exhibiting depression, anxiety and eating disorders, which had all been strongly linked to sexualisation.

“Parents also need to think about the message that this is sending to their children,” she said.

“It is very limiting for a child how much focus there is on looks.”

She said children should never be pressured to undergo such beauty treatments and discouraged from starting them until at least 14.

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April 20, 2010 Posted by peterhbrown | Adolescence, Books, Bullying, Child Behavior, Eating Disorder, Girls, Parenting, research, Sex & Sexuality, Social Psychology | Adolescence, Bullying, Charles Sturt University, child, Disorders, Girls, Health, Identity, Mental health, Newspaper, padded bra, Parenting, pre-adolescent, pre-teen, sexualisation, sexuality, sexy, teen, teenage-issues, tweenage, Wax | 6 Comments