Discovery Girls, a magazine aimed at tween girls ages 8 and up, has come under fire from angry parents after it offered some totally unnecessary advice to young girls about what swimsuits would flatter their figures best.
The fashion spread basically divided girls into four categories based on their “body types” and dished out tips. Girls who were ‘curvy up top’ were told to try a full-piece with ‘side ties and cutouts that draw the eyes down,’ – which makes us wonder whose “eyes”?! Whose eyes being drawn to little girls in bathing suits need to be distracted down?!
Punters took to twitter to voice their anger:
@taffyakner wrote, “Hey @DiscoveryGirls, why not include diet tips/surgical options with this? Your readers are 9, after all. Tick tock.”
And @rhiannonlucyc commented, “Weeping for my future daughters. This mag @discoverygirls is for girls 8+”.
So why would a magazine for very young girls be dishing out advice based on body type? Well not even the magazine’s publisher is sure why.
Discovery Girls’ publisher, Catherine Lee issued a lengthy open letter on Facebookaddressing the article and said she wasn’t sure who gave the final OK to an article like this.
“It’s still hard for me to believe that an article so contrary to our magazine’s mission could have been published on our pages,” wrote Lee.
She also said the initial idea was to showcase “cute, fun swimsuits that make girls feel confident,” but even that might not have been right for 8-year-olds because the kind of swimmers a kid that age that should be in should just be the one she likes, regardless of “body type”.
