Last year parents declared super skinny jeans inappropriate for 4-year-olds. This year they’re questioning whether padded bikini tops are appropriate for little girls. Yes, those teeny triangle tops with a thick pillowy pad are now being made for 8-year-olds. Gasp!

Ready or not, swimsuit season is here, and clothing stores across America are filling their racks with stringy bikinis, feeding women’s insecurities and reminding us all that we should go to the gym before summer hits.

This year’s crop of swimsuits includes an interesting offering for young girls: padded bikini tops.

Yes, Abercrombie Kids seems to think your 8-year-old’s chest is too flat.

The popular fashion brand’s new spring kids’ line includes three bikini top styles, including the Ashley Push Up Triangle, that are all stuffed with padding.

Abercrombie Kids is an offshoot of Abercrombie & Fitch, the popular fashion brand aimed at teenagers. The kids line is geared at kids ages 8 to 14.

While a 14-year-old might be ready to try a padded bikini, it’s hard to imagine that an 8-year-old’s cleavage needs enhancing. What sort of message are you sending a 2nd grader when you buy her a push-up top?

Moms are voicing their outrage on the Internet and questioning whether these tops will lead little girls to feel inadequate. Over at Babble mom blogger Rebecca Odes writes: “…the use of the word “push up” is unbelievably inappropriate. The push up bra is, effectively, a sex tool, designed to push the breasts up and out, putting them front and center where they’re more accessible to the eye (and everything else). How is this okay for a second-grader?

I stopped by the Abercrombie Kids store at San Francisco’s Westfield Mall yesterday to see if people are overreacting. The padding, especially in the push-up style, is generous. In fact, it’s equal in thickness to the Victoria’s Secret push-up bra I was wearing that day.

This isn’t the first uproar over kids’ padded bikinis. Last year, the British clothing chain Primark pulled a line of padded bikinis aimed at girls as young as 7 after criticism from advocacy groups protesting the sexualization of children.

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