As a child, I remember having a hard time finding a Barbie that was my skin-tone (and had my facial features). At 16 inches, Barbie’s waist is smaller than her head, the waist of an average woman is 32-34 inches.īarbie is portrayed to live the perfect life - having the most perfect friends, the perfect boyfriend (Ken), the perfect career, the perfect clothes, and the perfect body.įurthermore, there is a large under-representation of black Barbie dolls.Barbie’s neck is twice as long and six inches thinner than the average woman.The average woman has a waist-hip ratio of 0.80. The Barbie doll has a waist-hip ratio of 0.56.Is it a coincidence that young girls also begin to develop self-esteem/body image ‘issues’ around this same time? I’ll leave that for you to decide. On average, girls start playing with Barbie dolls around the age of four or five. Owning at least one Barbie doll is part of a normal childhood…there’s mermaid Barbie, Malibu Barbie, Princess Barbie, pregnant Barbie, the list goes on and on.īarbie continues to be at the top of the leader-board. Click to EnlargeĪccording to the Barbie website, one Barbie is sold every three seconds - that’s an estimated 10.5 million dollars each year. Would she look at this cartoon - who is portrayed as the pretty popular girl - and model her self-image after something that is completely unrealistic and unhealthy. Not only was I surprised by how inappropriate this was for children, I was worried about how this would affect my cousin’s self-esteem and body image. I was watching Cartoon Network the other day with my five year old cousin, and one of the cartoons had big boobs and was wearing short shorts (look at her waist).
By the age of 7, “one in four kids has engaged in some kind of dieting behavior.” Research suggest that adolescent girls (and boys), begin developing their body image around the age of 5…some even earlier. Living in a world that is obsessed with having the perfect body, along with the objectification of women in mass media, one’s body image is being formed earlier than ever. Now that I am older, I understand the importance of my dad’s words…and for so many reasons, remembering that I’m “no Barbie doll” speaks levels into my life. I’m raising you to stand on your own two feet.”Īs a child, this saying of his went straight through one ear and out of the other. One of the things I remember most of my childhood is my father saying, “You’re no Barbie doll.