Barbie Body Image Essay

Under society’s customs for decades, young women have found themselves immersed in the pressure and anticipation to have exemplary bodies. Nearly every young woman prefers to be slim, have a perfectly shaped body, that is beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but does not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these measures imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless, naturally it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the that model. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough, our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a surging subject for young girls. Advertisements and pictures of lean female models are all over. Young women are measured and perplexed by their physical appearances with attire intended to raise their physical structures; social media, magazines, the society, marketing campaigns, advertisements, and the fashion gurus add to a strand of excellence.

In my opinion, I believe that kids should be playing with dolls that have normal features, or with action figures where the superheroes muscles/features should resemble to what an average person’s features should look like. Even though barbies help entertain girls and inspire them, I still believe that girls should be playing with dolls that have normal features. People aren’t really aware about the things kids actually thought about themselves when they play with barbie dolls or action figures. There are girls as young as five that are concerned about their body image. They believe that the way the barbie looks like is the same way they should look like when they get older. It isn’t just girls that think about this boys do to. Boys

On top of this, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures and runway models influenced their idea of a perfect body shape (only 5% of the female population naturally has the body type portrayed as ideal in advertisement). This is obviously a problem because, growing up, girls everywhere are told that they’re pretty and that being pretty is the most important thing about them and they start basing their worth on their looks. But then, every single woman they see on TV, in movies, in magazines, any woman considered “hot” and “beautiful” doesn’t look like them anymore, which brings on deadly disorders like anorexia and bulumia that wreck the lives of young girls. Since 90% of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, we should be asking ourselves “what is causing my child to develop destructive habits at such a young age?” The answer is that they’ve been told that the type of body

In an article in Interview Magazine, Emily Prager discuses her opinions of Mattel's toy doll Barbie being designed by Jack Ryan, husband to Zsa Zsa Gabor, and designer of military missiles. The concept that a doll for young girls was designed by such a person greatly shocked Prager." Suddenly a lot of things made sense to me" says Prager. The element that Ryan designed Barbie may explain some of the key aspects of the doll itself.

In the essay 'Our Barbies, Ourselves,' Emily Prager explores the history of the Barbie doll and talks about the Barbie doll itself. Prager seems convinced that the Barbie doll was an object created by a man and that Barbie reeks of sexuality, sexual innuendo and serves as the anti-feminist embodiment of every man's fantasy. In her own expressive and persuasive modes to fashion an essay designed to persuade the reader that the Barbie doll is a twisted and corrupt tool designed by men to combat the feminist revolution. Though her attempts at persuasion are commendable, I was not swayed in my opinions on Barbie. If anything, I just found fault with this writer's point of view, and I found her

The poem, "Barbie Doll," written by Marge Piercy tells the story of a young girl growing up through the adolescence stage characterized by appearances and barbarity. The author uses imagery and fluctuating tone to describe the struggles the girl is experiencing during her teenage years, and the affects that can happen. The title of this poem is a good description of how most societies expect others, especially girls to look. Constantly, people are mocked for their appearance and expected to represent a "barbie-doll"-like figure. Few are "blessed" with this description. The female gender is positioned into the stereotype that women should be thin and beautiful. With this girl, the effects were detrimental. The first stanza describes the

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

In this world that we are, we especially women always want to do our best to have

A website stated that “58% of girls that are currently attending college stated that they are not satisfied with the size of their body” (qtd. in DoSomething). Throughout the world, little girls are being negatively affected by the assumptions set forth by companies and society that being fat is bad for oneself. The creation of Barbies have set unrealistic and unobtainable goals for little girls, which won’t allow them to reach the good life because they will never reach this “Barbie” body. The central argument being addressed is analyzing how a girl’s image of herself affects her ability to reach the good life. Even though society and companies have engraved into us that the shape and size of our bodies is so important, Prager and Whittal show us that to achieve the good life one must focus on their self image rather than letting society influence them.

She sits on the armrest of her wine-stained couch, then falls backward with a cushioned thud. Her thick, kinky hair lays splayed under her. Her large, veiny hands lift up to her tear-soaked face, covering her eyes. She sighs aloud summoning her roommates’ attention.

Self-esteem plays a big part of body image. People have to feel good about themselves and be comfortable in their own skin to be happy. In today's world, it feels almost impossible to be happy, this generation is all about the media which makes having self-esteem 10x harder. Millions of pictures are posted of expectations of how women should look. In an article written by Pavica Sheldon, she states that ”The average American woman is 5’4 and 140 pounds, whereas the average female model portrayed in the media is 5’11 and 120 pounds”. Women are placed into a box telling them they have to look a certain way and if they don't they're simply not good enough. Besides being put into a category women numerously get called nasty names like slut or whore if they show too much. Piggy and fatty if they're overweight. Or “stick” if she's too skinny. Nothing is ever good enough is what it feels like. For example, Kylie Jenner, if you grew up watching “Keeping up with the Kardashians” you know how she looked before all the plastic surgery she got done, she now looks completely different. An account wrote, “What are they giving Kylie?” and someone quoted the tweet and said plastic. So even if women try to fix their imperfections they still get shamed down for it by calling them fake.

As a young girl the fondest memory was playing with all my Barbie dolls and having the time of my young youth. Getting new Barbie’s for my birthday and Christmas was the highlight for my friends and I every year, and comparing which dolls the others got with each other. Never once growing up did any of us feel that Barbie was bad for us to play with, or that she was a bad role model. She could be anything that she wanted to be and her friends were all different too. Barbie was just a doll that we could make say what ever we wanted to, and we let our imaginations make each doll have their own personality. Our mothers played with them when they were our age and turned out pretty well, and no one that I have

a. Girls, this is a question for you. How many of you have had Barbie dolls growing up? (Have time to answer)

It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that critics began “comparing Barbie to a Playboy Bunny and calling her a corrupter of youth” (”Bad Girl” 3). One woman commented, “She’s an absurd representation of what a woman should be” (“Bad Girl” 3)-–and that’s exactly what many others thought she was, too. With such impossible real-life measurements of 5’9” tall, 36”-18”-33” bust, waist, and hip (Benstock and Ferriss 35), it’s easy to see why mothers across the country banned the doll from their homes and refused to let their impressionable young daughters be influenced by a piece of painted plastic (Bestock and Ferriss 35). Since dolls have often been responsible for teaching children what society deems important or beautiful, many concerned parents wondered why Mattel did not design a doll that taught more valuable lessons than dressing pretty and being dangerously skinny (Edut 19)? Who said a runway model was best suited for teaching a child what is beautiful anyway? “According to a Mattel spokesperson, a Kate Moss figure is better suited for today’s fashions” (Edut 19), and that is one reason why Barbie must be so disproportional. Actually, another reason for Barbie’s anorexic figure can be traced back long before Kate Moss and the fashion runway. Barbie was

Finally in 1958, Barbie Millicent Roberts was born 11 1/2 inches tall and weighing 11 ounces. She debuted as a teenage model in a black and white striped swimsuit that came with sunglasses, high-heeled shoes, and gold-colored hoop earrings (see Figure 1). Her body was shapely with movable head, arms, and legs. Barbie was the first doll in America with an adult body.