Barbie: Body image issues

Is Barbie to blame, at least in part, for the increase in eating disorders in today's young women? There is research that supports this idea.

A group of psychologists in Russia supported The Russian Education Ministry in its attempts to ban Barbie from Russia in 2003. The Ministry’s mission was to prohibit toys that had a bad influence, and Barbie, very popular in Russia, was deemed inappropriate because she was seen as promoting sexual awareness to too young an audience. Additionally, the Ministry and its supporters feared that Barbie presented girls with an unrealistic body type to emulate, and at too early an age. It didn’t help that Barbie’s extensive wardrobe inspired materialistic desires that were unattainable for the majority of Russian girls.

Researchers in England came to similar conclusions. Studies conducted at Sussex and the University of the West of England and reported on in the UK Sunday Times in May, 2006, stated that the idealized and unrealistic body images posed by Barbie dolls were harmful to young girls, because they invoked unrealistic expectations of what girls should look like when they reached adulthood.

Many would dismiss these concerns by reminding consumers that Barbie is only a toy, a doll at the toy store to be purchased or not. But there is a foundation for seeing a Barbie doll as a role model.

The word "doll" comes from the Greek word "eiddon," which means "idol." Whatever a culture idealizes, it casts as its dolls. In centuries past, idols often represented fertility and strength; in the 20th century, the culture shifted to idealizing a thin physique. Critics of Barbie point to a study that stated that a woman with Barbie’s body proportions would lack the body fat for healthy maturation and menstruation.

Other studies done during the 1980s comparing the relative proportions of Barbie and her companions to real-life figures showed that Barbie's measurements, though largely unattainable, related most closely to the measurements of fashion models. In America, where Barbie was created, people idealized long necks, arms and legs, and a tiny waist relative to hips and chest. From this perspective, Barbie, a creation of the 1950s, represented the cultural ideals of this era.

During these same decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the rates of eating disorders. Is there a connection? Quite possibly. But Barbie is less likely responsible than the culture that created her and her friends, a culture that pursues the ideal of unhealthily-thin women. Ironically, this thinness can cause infertility, a far cry from the robust, buxom ideals of other cultures.