Anorexia And Society

When Barbie is brought up the first thing people will think of is her figure. With a tiny waist, slim legs, and particularly small hands and feet, this is the main tool that people on the countercheck of Barbie’s popularity use to attack the doll’s positive features, encouraging the idea that Barbie’s unrealistic shape causes body image issues and insecurities in young children;

The Barbie doll has been a popular play toy for young girls since the late 1950s. Although the Barbie doll seem like an innocent toy, it has had an effect on little girls’ body images. Many studies have shown an association between young girls playing with Barbies and eating disorders. Even grown women want to resemble Barbie so badly that they start to do surgery on their bodies which can be very dangerous. This has led to the term, Barbie Syndrome, which refers to “the drive, often of adolescent girls, to attain impossible standards of beauty, projected by toys—e.g., Mattel’s Barbie Doll—and the media, resulting in failure and frustration, issues related to body

Unfortunately, it also is highly unattainable and instills unrealistic goals in girls’ minds. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, there are up to 24 million people suffering from eating disorders and 86% of those are under the age of 20 (anad.org). That being said, negative adverse effects are often the results of our world placing the upmost importance on body image. At Radboud University, Doeschka Anschutz and Rutger Engels conducted an experiment designed to test the effects of playing with thin dolls on body image and food intake in 6-10 year old girls. After splitting the girls into three different groups where they either played with a thin doll, an average sized doll or a slightly oversized doll, as seen in figure one, the results yielded that indeed there were significant differences between the girls’ body image and food intake which was completely dependent on which doll they played with (Anschutz, Engels 625). For example, a girl that played with the thinnest doll, the Barbie Doll, consumed the least amount of food following playtime when girls that played with either the average sized doll or even slightly larger doll consumed significantly more food. This experiment explicitly highlights the unknown dangers associated with playing with Barbie Dolls at a young age. Immediately the doll caused young girls to see themselves as ‘too big’ or

Emily Prager, in Our Barbies, Ourselves, stated that Barbies have influenced little girls around the world on what the perfect body looks like, when in reality there is no “perfect” body. Our Barbies, Ourselves states “here are millions of women who are

However, that isn’t true, Barbie is playing a huge role in eating disorders in women. It’s estimated that 8 million people have eating disorders and that only 10 to 15% are men and the rest are women. Out of that percentage, 80% of the women are below twenty. Author of “The Barbie Effect” says, “Many admitting that they started worrying about their weight when they were between the age of four and six years old. That is around the age that a girl usually gets her first Barbie doll, and many of the girls who have or had an eating disorder admitted that Barbie played a huge role on their influences in behavior and looks.” (“The Barbie Effect”) Another example would be a victim of an eating disorder, Galia Slayen, and how she created a ‘Real Life’ Barbie doll to raise awareness. Slayen had created it out of chicken wire and some other things from the store to make her according to the statistics of what Barbie’s size would actually be like if she was real. Slayen was feeling pressured by her peers and with the obsession for perfection that she had had since a young age. After it all, Slayen said, “Despite her appearance, Barbie provides something that many advocacy efforts lack. She reminds of something we once loved, while showing us the absurdity of our obsession with perfection.”

In the Western culture, it has long been the tradition to strive for perfection in everything possible. In many ways, this has moved our culture and technology forward. This can also be quite detrimental to people, because perfection is often not attainable. In the medical field, perfection is often the goal for patients. When dealing with the human body, perfection really isn’t universal nor a realistic goal. This strive for perfection has caused some health problems for people including anorexia, erectile dysfunction, and ADHD. When people from other cultures are introduced to the medical system in Western culture, there is often a large degree of confusion and extremely different practices.

Female submissively follow this idea of unrealistic expectations and body alteration because media has unconsciously created them to feel that the advertised body are the right body. The media misrepresent female, youth and beauty. By having women be portrayed as young, beauty, thin, and

As many feminists would like to argue, Barbie is taking a toll on young women’s confidence by bringing up unreasonable and unachievable expectations regarding looks, encouraging infinite consumerism, excluding any bodies out of the gender binary and a terror for aging. In the article “Action Figures and Men” there has been a same approach about Barbie’s unattainable body and lifestyle, alongside with G.I. Joe and wolverine who have unrealistic body measurements and affect young boys’ self-esteem same way as Barbie does to girls. As we read in The Anthropometry of Barbie, she is a doll made to portray the ‘good girl’ image; she is sexy, smart, rich, and extremely ambitious. Barbie teaches girls more than just to be pretty and an ‘eye candy’, as

The question arises if the Barbie doll should be banned from our homes for imposing a negative view on the young girls of our society. Though she acts as a role model for most, can she also be the cause of the tearing down of self-esteem for others? This topic is nothing new, the beloved Barbie doll has been receiving criticism for her body since her release over fifty years ago. Meanwhile during her lifetime, she has broken the barrier for women to pursue careers that are mostly male dominated. So, does she still pose a threat to young girl’s views of their body or is she opening the door for girls to be who they want to be?

Barbie may represent the average american woman, perhaps in spirit, but not body. Today, many women and young girls feel the pressure of maintaining the unrealistic beauty standards modern society presents. It comes as a routine for any body hair to be plucked, waxed, or shaved, even though bodies naturally regenerate hair. Diets, cleanses, and fastings must be followed strictly in order to lose the bulging belly fat and achieve those “killer abs” or “best bikini body ever”. Mattel has faulted at Barbie’s dimensions, which are impossible to achieve. Her waist is 16 inches, with hips at 29 inches and a neck at 9 inches, compared to the average American woman whose waist ranges from 32-34 inches, hips at 37- 38, and neck in between 12-13 inches. With a waist smaller than her head, Barbie’s tiny waistline would only be able to support “half a liver and only a few inches of intestine,” (google images barbie). While, some women disagree that they compare their physique to a doll, in a British 2006 study, “girls [aged five to eight] exposed to Barbie reported lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape than those who had been given dolls reflecting larger body types or no dolls at all” (Grinberg 1). However, Mattel has worked on normalizing Barbie’s features and portions in order to reduce

Eating disorders are severe disturbances in eating behaviors, such as eating too little or eating too much. “Anorexia nervosa affects nearly one in 200 Americans in their lives (three-quarters of them female)” (Treating anorexia nervosa). Anorexia, when translated into Greek means “without appetite” which is not true for all suffering from anorexia most people with this disorder have not lost their appetite they simply have to ignore it. People with anorexia have an intense fear of gaining weight and have convinced themselves that they are overweight even if they are the opposite of overweight. Since the way that they view themselves is in a negative light they starve themselves and put their lives at risk. “In the most severe

Requirements of beauty are presented in almost all figures of trending media, which bombard women with images that illustrate what is scrutinized to be recognized as the perfect body. With fashion magazines, advertisements, movies, and television shows displaying young and attractive women whose body density is extremely below that of the ordinary everyday woman in reality, women begin to get self conscious and try to change themselves. When women begin to obsess over having the body of a model, dieting and exercise are not good or fast enough for the results they want. Because of their genetic body types, several of the standards for this body image are nearly impossible for most women to attain without plastic surgery of some kind. The flawless image of a female’s body that the media portrays does not actually exist; however, women starve themselves or pay for plastic surgery,

Anorexia Nervosa is mostly present in western countries. Anorexia nervosa has been increasing over years. Women are more affected by anorexia nervosa than men. (Makino, Tsuboi & Dennerstein, 2004). Anorexia Nervosa is defined as people starving for food as they are afraid to put on weight .People adopting the western culture find their ideal body type as slim, so they need to do exercise and should not eat fat to stay slim. Mass media has contributed a lot in influencing women in the western culture and is contributing to stereotype the ideal body type. Health professionals, need to do a work hard to find the reason behind people self starving as anorexia nervosa is considered as a serious illness which should be treated.

Barbies have changed a lot over the years. Not just Barbies, but kids toys and dolls have made drastic improvements and advancements. The first toy can be traced back to ancient Greece in 10th century B.C. Dolls can be traced back even further. Since then, these plastic toys, specifically Barbies, have affected the body images of little girls. If Barbie was life size, she would be 5’9” and weigh only 110 pounds. Her body’s fat percentage would be so low that she wouldn’t be able to walk or even live a healthy life. Barbies are a positive and negative influence on young girls. She shows them that they can do whatever job they want, but on the other hand, she represents what our society thinks is the “perfect” body.

A large contributing factor to this problem is that many people in the fashion world encourage the use of overly thin models in editorials and fashion shows. For example, as Kathryn Shattuck, What's On Today: [The Arts/Cultural Desk], mentions that Kelly Cutrone, world renowned fashion publicist, encourages, “Clothes look better on thin people. The fabric hangs better” (1). The fashion industry’s emphasis on being thin and its use of extremely underweight models in unacceptable. Many people would agree that the fashion industry plays the majority role in eating disorders, but Lisa Hilton, British Vogue writer, disagrees. Hilton argues, “Its objective is selling clothes, and the consensus remains that in order to achieve this, models need to be thin . . . Fashion is about fantasy, about impossibility, about, dare we say it, art. Most women can’t tell the difference” (1). Hilton condescendingly continues to refute the criticisms that models are too thin and the fashion industry encourages eating disorders.