The Picture of Beauty has Brainwashed Everyone

Even though media vaunts an iridescent image of what every girl should look like, the simple fact is just, it is impossible. It is because the pictures in the media are not true—they all have gone through lots of Photoshop. Only 5 percent of women have the body type seen in almost all advertisements. Besides, most of fashion models are thinner than 98 percent of American women. However, women still continue to do whatever they can in order to fit into that idea of ‘perfection’. Eating disorders have harassed who want to feel like they are ‘beautiful’, for years. Women are willing to do anything even though it can cause harm to their own self due to low self-esteem. Do you want your sister, friends or girl friends always feel depressed and doing harm to themselves, as they feel dissatisfied about their

The fashion industry plays a huge role in portraying bad images of ideal beauty, which in turn affects today’s society perception of their own body image. Not only are women affected by what is seen and heard about how the perfect body should appear, children of young ages are now feeling insecure and obsessed with their bodies before they reach teenage years. This ‘ideal image’ the fashion industry continues to enforce only focuses on very thin models who seem to be in shape and are very healthy. Furthermore, many people think of the influence from the fashion industry as being human representations (models). Because of the rising problem with the image of beauty within the fashion industry, it is shown that even mannequins and non-human representations (mannequins, dolls, photoshopping) of bodies play a significant role in women’s body image; which causes problems to the individual. (Anshutz & Engels, 2010). Body image and self-satisfaction, eating disorders and non-human representations all can cause harm to the individual, if prolonged.

Young Girls look up to many people as role models, one role model that plays an immense part in their lives is Barbie. Barbie is defined as being pretty, beautiful, and even perfect. But is she really that wonderful as she seems? Her body shape is completely inaccurate representation of the female body and people get easily influenced by these unrealistic standards. If no one steps up to help young girls realize that Barbie is not perfect then they will have dissatisfaction with themselves forever. Body dissatisfaction is becoming more and more popular and one reason is that Barbie presents an unrealistic body image that affects young girls and their idea of a perfect life.

Todays society has been raised to idolize unrealistic body figures; which in turn, causes harm to women’s lives through their low self esteem, as well as eating disorders, and earning less income for obese working women. Every little girls dream toy when they are young, is to own one, if not many, Barbie dolls. What many parents do not know, or think about, is they are setting their child up for a long battle of self doubt, and low self esteem. Children, without knowing it, look at Barbie and think that is what they should look like, but in reality Barbie is an unrealistic figure. If Barbie was real, she would be about five feet, nine inches tall, and one hundred and ten pounds.

In the united states women expectation of beauty has change over time. Everywhere you turn their women being adversity as Victoria secret model or Barbie. Girls would want to look like this causing them to feel a shamed of their body and have eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia. Women are expected to be a Victoria secret model. Which some or most women can’t accomplish. Most girl want “that” perfect body type – slim, but not skinny; soft, but not fat. However, these goal lead to unhealthy body alteration.

Seeing the perfect Barbie figure brings a deeper realization to how far someone may be from this ideal look, causing many health issues on the interior as well. In the article “Epidemic of Body Hatred” written by the site Dying to Be Barbie, writes about the stress and anxiety that even children face to avoid being “overweight” and how this leads to many eating disorders and unhealthy children. Their research showed that after having their own Barbie and being apart of an image-based society that “hundreds of more children, aged 5 to 9, have undergone treatment for their eating disorders” (Dying to Be Barbie). The image that Barbie portrays influences children to the extreme and affects them most when they are at an age where they are in need of guidance to be happy with who they are. Instead of being happy with themselves, they look at what society and Barbie pushes them to be.

As you’re walking down a street you may notice a young group of girls or women walking and they see a huge billboard of a beautiful model. They might stop and stare at her and then discuss about her perfect her body is. Not knowing in the next five minutes they’ll be comparing their bodies to the model and feeling bad about themselves wishing that they had her body. Not to mention, that the photo may be photoshopped to make it seem as her body is perfect, or she had plastic surgery to fit the idea of having the perfect body. The fact that the media thinks they’re encouraging young girls and women to embrace their beauty, they’re influencing them that they have to have a perfect body in order to get attention. The media has put a lot of pressure on young girls and women to look perfect and second guess their bodies, when plastic surgery is never the answer to build their self-esteem up.

Women in the past and present have faced issues of diversity and inequality based on their good looks. Now, Mattel, the maker of the Barbie, is striving to change an overdue icon of American beauty, the Barbie doll. The article, “A Barbie For Every Body,” written by Eliana Dockterman, is about the new styles of Barbies that have been created, and the social prejudice against the original style of the Barbie. I chose this article out of pure excitement that Mattel is changing the Barbies to look more like real American women. In America, self-image and self-esteem, are major priorities for most ladies.

This article highlights the unrealistic standards women face, the negative stigma or idea surrounding the physic of women, and the countless talks about how woman should be happy with the way they look. Martell and Barbie released a new line of dolls for young girls, introducing “Curvy, tall, and petite” as the article says. Mattel starting off abruptly with the headline of “Now can we stop talking about my body?”. The director of consumer insights for the doll line continued with saying “We have to let girls know it doesn’t matter what shape you come in, anything is possible.”.

Yet today the society still treats the young child like life­sized dolls (such as Toddlers in Tiaras, etc). A child with insecurity regarding their body can enter a toy store, and sees a Barbie Doll with an hourglass figure with lot of makeup on and wonders why she doesn’t look like that. She can hold it and think, “Why can’t I be like this?” That’s not realistic. Fortunately, research today tells of a brand new realistic Barbie Doll. The market is making an “average” Barbie Doll that is more realistic to the women today. They wanted the children to have Barbie Dolls that are reflective of

another study, “four out of five 10-year-olds say that they're afraid of being fat. 42% of girls in first through third grade wish they were thinner. And, half of girls aged 9 or 10 claim that they feel better about themselves when they're dieting” (Mazur 293). This study serves as a great evidence to support the thesis because it shows that there is a negative impact and this impact can lead to various health problems among the young children. Barbie doll is the product of a society and media culture that praises an extremely thin and unrealistic body shape for women above anything else. It also degrades the value of any woman who strays outside the false "norm" of the ideal body shape which pursuits the extremely skinny body shape. In pursuit of that unattainable goal, the people who try to obtain this body shape will eventually starve themselves to death.

Barbie is becoming a more realistic symbol of women. Why now? People are starting to realize how unrealistic and detrimental it is to have such high standards. Girls have played with this iconic toy since the mid twentieth-century. It took over half of a century for the iconic toy and symbol to become more relatable.

Duncan 1 Brittany Duncan Instructor Kathryn Mitchell English 102 6 November, 2014 Unrealistic Perceptions If you are women; you most likely have had at least one Barbie doll or if you’re a guy you have notice a girl admiring this doll, a doll that you took with you everywhere you went, you had an favorite outfit, a favorite way to do her hair, you admired that Barbie doll and someday wanted be like this doll, this object. But that’s just it, an object is an object.

It has come to the time where a girls’ worth is measured using the size of her clothing. Teenage is a time of discovering one’s identity, so when adolescents are pelted with “perfectified” images of “size zeroes”, they are pressured into thinking that that's what it means to be considered beautiful. This false belief is mainly shaped by the fashion industry and the media. Due to teenagers trying to be become duplicates of women who only exist in fairy tales, they are losing their individuality along with their self-esteem. Airbrushing of images has had a drastic impact on the current society that fashion has become very closely linked with media.

After 57 years since its creation, Barbie has finally obtained a new body. The three new body types are petite, tall and curvy. On January 28th, Mattel released these new dolls for sale on their website. Eliana Dockterman goes inside the company’s story to discuss the risks they 're taking and what their decision says about American beauty standards. For generations, Barbie has been the global symbol of American beauty. The doll has been associated with the belief that it was designed “to teach women what is expected of them in society.” In 2006, a study published in the journal Development Psychology found that girls exposed to Barbie at a young age “expressed greater concern with being thin, compared with those exposed to other dolls.” Barbie sales then plummeted from 2012 to 2014 when Lego and Disney Princesses took the spotlight. The Mattel Company decided that they had to reassess the criticism and make a change. Even though they’ve tried to make Barbie represent “female empowerment” by giving her status women were restricted to in the past, there were still criticisms. At her core Barbie is just a body, not a character. Once the company realized how the doll’s body affected society’s idea of body image, they chose to redefine Barbie. The Mattel Company hopes that the diverse body types, skin tones, and hair textures will closely reflect their owner’s environment. Of course, though, this initiative could backfire. Adding new body types is likely to irritate some people