Sharon Choksi

What you find is across all of those companies, the shirts are 1 to 3 inches slimmer for a girl in every single brand, and when you talk about the shorts, the shorts are literally one-third the length of the boys' shorts, it's one thing for us to say, 'Oh, they're smaller,' but when you actually see the numbers, I think it really drives home the message.

And so that has an effect of normalizing sexual appearance, a sexual behavior for younger and younger girls, it starts out in the media. Suddenly, this seems more normal. Marketers market to older girls, and younger girls start to mimic it, and I do think a lot of it is a desensitization. It becomes so normalized as to be unremarkable.

You have teeny-tiny cap sleeves. You have very fitted shirts that you find more in the women's department ... and then the shorts is where perhaps most parents gasp as they walk into some of these stores.

I think it's one thing that the girls' clothes are very fitted and small, and it's another that they're in such direct contrast to what you find on the boys' side, and those two things send a pretty strong message about what they're supposed to look like, dressed to be slim and to be fit.

Clothes shouldn't need to be another place where they are receiving that message and putting additional pressure on them.

And I can see how that lends itself to self-esteem issues or just like self-consciousness issues because you don't have the option to not always have your whole body be very visible.

Nobody is really addressing the fit of the clothes and the messag... by Sharon Choksi

Nobody is really addressing the fit of the clothes and the messages that sends to the girls.

If you compare (our shirts) against what you find in a typical girls' or boys' department, our shirts are literally in the middle.

Clothing definitely plays a role in the sexualization of our girls, so from prom dresses to starter bras to shorts, I believe we need to show our girls a broader range of options so they can choose the style that works for them.