I guess they can only capture so much in a 45(?) minute programme.
Reflecting the diversity of children across the piece must be impossible. And I daresay it suits purpose for it to be slightly disturbing, presenting our worst fears back to us and saying it's inevitable regardless of our backgrounds/input, etc. that we'll have anything other than broods of tarts and gangsters!!!
I can't imagine mine would EVER pink a pink dress with a belt and fishnet nights. She hates anything overly girly. Especially tights and belts. She'd have gone with jeans and a tee but I suspect they weren't provided as part of the selection process.
If you give kids fancy dress items like this, a lot of them will gravitate to the shiny and the theatrical. It's pretty obvious really.
And my girls mate Max would have talked the hind leg off any kid in that room, so it's a load of old nonsense to draw conclusions from that exercise that men aren't great communicators. I remember the last play date we had with Max I thought I'd got tinnitus when he'd gone!!!
The body shape thing, as well, I've been thinking about. All the girls picked really skinny shapes, but that's no surprise is it?
Kids are hardly experts at accurately guestimating sizes...if you say it's good to be slim, which lots of us do either concsiously or unconcsiously...kids then pick out the skinniest shape available. It doesn't mean that's how they all want to be, though admittedly, some of the girls interviewed did seem worryingly body conscious in my opinion.
Some of the comments the kids were coming out with about fat people were seriously disturbing and you have to ask, where does that come from?
We've asked our dd about fatness before, not because it's an issue, but it was flagged up in a programme we were watching (I can't remember what it was now) and she said your shape doesn't have any effect on whether you'll be nasty or nice...it's just your shape.
Dd's not super skinny...she's kinda lean but already has curvy hips, so I'm trying to ensure she gets positive messages about curves.
IMO this programme, or social experiment as they call it, involves such a small sample size of the population it can't possibly give representative conclusions. Having said that, it does put a magnifying glass on a lot of the issues that we, as parents, like to talk and worry about. For that alone, it's got to be worth watching, but I don't take it much more seriously than I take Hollyoaks or Tracy Beaker!