Here’s a great article from Time Magazine that goes beyond the media hype to look at the real reasons for a growing trend in ‘sexy’ behaviour among teenage girls. From the article:

Like steak-house owners trying to raise vegetarians, we idealize youth and sexiness but recoil if our young want to be sexy. What has complicated things recently is that girls are literally getting older younger. Their bodies are hitting physical maturity sooner, often before they are ready to deal with the issues of sexuality that go along with it.

Thanks to threebillion