Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 36

34

Popular Culture Review

exercise togs. Skimpy and tight, the clothes emphasize the child's
thinness and lack of physical maturity. French-cut leotards look
grotesque on a child with no hips, but the prepubescent body is put
forward as the ideal look. No wonder that
In a survey of 494 middle-class schoolgirls in San
Francisco, more than half describe themselves as
overweight, while only 15 percent were so by medical
standards. Thirty-one percent of the nine-year-olds
thought they were too fat, and 81 percent of the tenyear-olds were dieters. (Wolf 215)
Get In Shape, Girl is not the only culprit, of course. L.A. Gear has
jumped on the "health" bandwagon, distributi