Barbie has been an iconic figure that little girls have looked up to for years. Whether you dress her to be a model or turn her into a doctor the world always seemed a little less dark with the innocence and creativity that Barbie has brought to the table. However, in the past five years Barbie’s image has been marred by critics and psychologists who believe that Barbie is the causing factor in the start of eating disorders and negativity body image. Everyone has known that Barbie’s body image is unrealistic. So why, fifty-eight years later, is this now a problem? In my own childhood Barbie was always a positive character. I would dress her up and take her on adventures and I can firmly say that as a young child Barbie was nothing but positive and was not a cause to my own body negativity. The body hatred and self-loathing came from something that was far more addicting than adventures with Barbie were. 

In the United States Barbie dominates the female toy game with 99% of three to ten year olds owning at least one Barbie in their life (Dittmar and Ive and Halliwell). The shape of Barbie has always been known but in recent years attention has been drawn to how exactly she would look as a real human. In The Conversation author Zali Yager, a senior lecturer at Victoria University, explains just how absurd her actual shape is by saying, “Researchers have reminded us that her proportions would occur in less that 1 in 100,000 women, that her waist is 20 cm smaller than a reference group of anorexic patients; and that with these proportions, she would not be able to menstruate or even hold up her head.” (Yager). By these dimensions we see that Barbie’s shape is not only unhealthy but also unrealistic. Another group that falls into unrealistic and unhealthy body shapes are models that bombard social media. In this occupation 70% of women are underweight and 85% are not in their ideal weight for age and stature (Morris). The magazines and media that these models are in are incorporated in the 7.5 hours a day that children aged 8-18 look at social media ("Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders”). In the article “Survey: Technology Use Among Young Kids is Skyrocketing,” Rob Scott provides more information on social media usage stating, “The survey, which coincides with Better Hearing and Speech Month, found significant percentages of parents reporting technology use by children up to age 8. Of the 1,000 parents surveyed, 59 percent said their kids have access to tablet devices, 52 percent said their children use smartphones, and 52 percent said they use video game consoles… 77 percent agreed that misuse of technology can be harmful to young children.” (Stott). Even with the threat of harm, parents still subject their children to technology for various reasons. Both Barbie and social media have been accused of contributing to anorexic and eating disorder behaviors. An eating disorder is defined as, “Syndromes characterized by significant disturbances in eating behavior and by distress or excessive concern about body shape or weight” (Franco).

So the question is; what is the causation of body negativity and why has there recently been such a rise in eating disorders. From my own personal experience, I believe that time and money have been wasted on changing the shape of Barbie. So many people that I have talked to have explained experiences wherein social media has been the underlying problem and Barbie was just a toy. I also believe that changing Barbie would cause more issues than it is fixing. By changing Barbie and trying to “fix” her you are causing a problem that was never there before. Another reason for Barbie not being the cause is the fact that Barbie has never been found as having a scientific correlation. Social media on the other hand has correlations in studies and evidence through “fitagrams.” Social media is the main problem and parents should be better educated in understanding what is the most influencing thing they are letting their children play with.

Growing up I was always intrigued by Barbie. She had it all. The clothes, the car, the yacht, the jobs, the dream house that everyone fantasied over, and most importantly the perfect boyfriend Ken. I was a very creative child and would take Barbie on adventures throughout my playroom turning my ball pit into an ocean for Barbie to sail on and my toy chest her top of the notch doctor’s office. My friends and I would fill our days exchanging Barbie clothes and fighting over who got to use my best friends Barbie car while taking her to the imaginary school dance filled with even more Barbies. I remember all of these details about her but something I don’t remember vividly was thinking that I wanted her body and that is because it never happened. If anything I wanted her pink ballet slippers that wrapped around her ankles, but most definitely not her body. Of course I remember what Barbie looks like I wasn’t blind to her blonde hair and shining blue eyes but I never remember wanting those characteristics for myself. At that age I loved my never-ending specks of freckles and dark hair. I do however remember when that changed. Going into eighth grade of middle school, I had just gotten and Instagram and the app began to take off. Every picture someone posted at that age was an uncomfortable brace faced, filter covered shot. It was taken with the webcam of your MacBook or your iPod with a camera, if you were like me who’s mom didn’t trust you to not accidently download viruses onto her computer. But there was one girl in my class whose mom was a photographer and it did not help that she was the prettiest girl in the whole middle school. She was the first person I remember ever comparing myself too. She had flawless skin bare of freckles, unlike my own. Her brown hair was shiny and straight, unlike the frizzy and dull look I had going on. And from there I tried to be like her and post pictures like her. I begged my mom for makeup to cover up my freckles but, once I got it never seemed to hide them enough. I bought a straightener but yet I still didn’t seem to compare to her. When I would post a picture I was proud of she would post one a second later making me loathe myself again because I would never be pretty enough for my own standards I had set by looking at social media. So no, I do not think that Barbie was the trigger because I have nothing but good images of Barbie. I remembered everything about Barbie so I would remember if she had made me feel less of a person like the girl in my middle school class had.

I’m not the only one with experience to tell, in fact from several people I questioned I got nothing but positives about Barbie. Sara Beth, a nineteen-year-old pre pharmacy student at the University of South Carolina, said, “I had every single Barbie movie, a Barbie blanket, and tons of Barbies. I loved her and she was extremely cool. She had everything she wanted along with a cool car and cute clothes. I first noticed that I had a negative body image when I joined a sport in 7th grade. Everyone was fit and I wanted to be in shape like they were.” Another girl I spoke to was Natalie, an eighteen-year-old Chemistry major at the University of South Carolina. She stated, “Barbie never gave me a bad body image and I’m her biggest fan. She taught me that I can be anything. I think the first idea of negative body image was when a girl at a waterpark made fun of me for having small boobs from there I was comparing myself to Victoria Secret models.” Again we have a case of peer influence being the causing affect and not Barbie. Lastly I spoke to Macy, a twenty-year-old Hospitality and Club Management major. She quickly had an interest in the topic saying, “I loved Barbie because she taught me I can be whatever I wanted including a princess. I loved playing with Barbies and that’s what I did most of the time when I was younger. The first time I had a negative view towards what I looked like was when I was bullied.” All of these were triggered by peer influence and how others looked around them. When further questioned all agreed that social media made it hard to have a positive image and that having an outlet where you can constantly compare yourself is a lot more damaging than you would realize. Most girl’s views of Barbie reflect that of Barbie’s most popular commercial called, “Imagine the Possibilities,” which features young girls in various jobs. It shows a younger girl being a professor, one being a vet, and another being a businesswoman. It then flashes to a girl playing with a Barbie who is making the Barbie a professor like the girl in the first shot. Barbie is seen by little girls as having a positive impact on making them strive for any job and believe that they can achieve the impossible (Barbie).

Changing Barbie will only cause even more problems and one of the biggest comes directly from an article called “Why The New ‘Curvy’ Barbie is Sending the Wrong Body Image Message.” The article is written by Izabella Zaydenberg, an editor for Elite Magazine and also a plus sized woman. She provides insight to how growing up she did wish that there was a Barbie like her but now looking at the situation actually happening she thinks that it is only causing problems that are even worse than the original. She believes that we aren’t really changing our thinking. We are just adding inches around her waist and making this the new norm of beauty except that this body is achievable unlike Barbie’s original body. Beyond that, Zaydenberg believes that there is an even bigger problem by giving this example, “Take my four-year-old sister, for example. If she was gifted a curvy Barbie for her birthday, I’d be livid. What is that supposed to mean? She needs a special doll because her figure deviates from the so-called norm? These new Barbies are forcing us to comment on children’s body weight.” I think it is funny that most people that fight for different Barbie body shapes would be like Zaydenberg. They want different body shapes because all bodies are beautiful, but chances are if their child was to receive a Barbie besides the regular one as a present there wouldn’t be an “all body shapes are beautiful” vibe at that party. Zaydenberg goes on to say that there needs to be something done about negative body image but Barbie was not the way to go about it (Zaydenberg). Other issues that have arisen are the change in clothes. Now there are different sized clothes so swapping clothes with your best friend who has a tall Barbie while you have a curvy one is not an option. Like I said before, as a child playing with Barbie I never noticed her size. By making them different sizes you make children aware that some things will not fit and it will draw them into noticing the size of their Barbie. They are taking something that was not noticeable or triggering and they are turning it into something that will cause problems within children. If Mattel wants to prevent body issues remove the different sized Barbies and put money towards organizations that support body positivity.

Along with all of the problems that changing Barbie would actually cause Barbie has never been found as having a correlation with body image. It is not the problem so why waste money on changing something that is not in need of fixing? Seems a little ridiculous to me. The main study calling out the lack of correlation is the Emme and Barbie study. In the article, “Does Barbie Make Girls Want to Be Thin? The Effect of Experimental Exposure to Images of Dolls on the Body Image of 5- to 8- Year-Old Girls,” Helga Dittmar, Suzanne Ive, and Emma Halliwell who are all psychology professors and senior lecturers explain the experiment. Girls were taken into rooms three at a time for around fifteen minutes. The girls were told they would be listening to a story about a girl going shopping and then to a party. The only difference is that one group would have Barbie as the main character, the other would have Emme who is a regular looking girl, and the last would have no dolls. After the story was read each girl had time to flip through the book and look at the different pictures. After everyone had a chance the girls were given a test in which they made it clear there were no right or wrong answers and they were to answer by picking and coloring in figures. The difference in results was 0.05 and 0.18 which showed that there was no correlation (Dittmar, Ive, Halliwell). Other studies have been done but Emme was the one that obtained the most information. None of the studies have come back with positive information for those wanting to end Barbie. But it’s no surprise. Children are filled with innocence and aren’t carrying the baggage of those that hate Barbie. 

In another article, “Is Barbie Bad for Body Image?” The author Zali Yager, as mentioned earlier, claims, “We do know that children learn by observing, absorbing, and imitating the things that they see around them, and that their early ideas about weight and appearance are shaped by their family, their peers, and the media” (Yager). Let us reinforce the “family, peers, and media” part. When speaking to people most would agree that these factors are the leading contributors to imitation. I have never experienced a case when discussing this topic with someone that they said, “Yes those are factors but what about Barbie?” That just seems a little ridiculous and I honestly would laugh if this was to happen. We know that the media plays a big part from the studies that have actually found a correlation between social media and body image. In a study done by Gonzalez-Lavin and Smolak in 1995 they took a sample of middle school girls and found a correlation between hours of television watched and body dissatisfaction. Other studies have shown that time is not the factor but instead the content that is consumed is the problem. Studies have shown that viewing things with body negative and eating disorder like behaviors will influence the consumer (Thompson and Kevin and Heinberg).

Social Media has turned into a spider and if you get caught in the web of Facebook, Instagram, etc. you won’t ever get out. As I went into high school my comparisons on social media followed me. I began to spend even more time on social media looking at girls in bathing suits with bodies much more fit than mine and I fell into an even darker hole of self-loathing. I began searching for hashtags that were not healthy and I followed several “fitsparations” and “fitagrams” where girls would pose as healthy and fit but were actually struggling with eating disorders of their own (Simmons). Only once I was doing this research did I actually realize that they had a problem and weren’t promoting actual healthy eating. This has been a growing problem with social media and Marcela Rojas with the Journal News wrote an article called, “Social Media Helps Fuel Some Eating Disorders.” She speaks of how pro-anorexic websites have existed for a while but that social media websites have given them a global platform to build off of. These are the types of sites that encourage the slogans like, “skinny girls don’t eat, skip dinner, be thinner, and you have to exercise a week to work off the thigh fat from a single Snickers.” These slogans, while some are catchy, are broadcasting negative images. Rojas also brings up the fact that, “Social media, she said, amplifies behaviors associated with eating disorders – obsessions, comparisons, and competition – with a constant stream of imagery and camaraderie-building, and how easy it is to seek and gain approval (Rojas). This is so true. Never before has there been a time where social media is so easily obtainable and the stream of content never stops. If you become fixated on an idea of being skinnier it is beyond easy to type in a hashtag and find images that will worsen your state. This is why NEDA has gotten involved. NEDA is the National Eating Disorder Association and they have begun working with every social media platform in a hope that they can stop the pro-eating disorder behavior posts. They have worked with social media so when someone types in a certain hashtag, that could trigger or bring up unhealthy images, a warning pops up on the screen. I did it myself to see if it would work and it came up with an option to get help from NEDA (Rojas). You know what doesn’t have an advisory warning? A Barbie doll. That is because it is just a doll and we are wasting our time and money on a toy when we could be putting our efforts into raising money to help non-profits like NEDA.

Social media is the main problem here and the blame is being placed on Barbie because there are more and more younger children developing eating disorders. But, has anyone stopped to think that maybe younger and younger children have begun developing eating disorders and negative body image because we are starting to give children technology and access to media at younger and younger ages? If Barbie was an issue, then there would’ve been a problem back then but only recently has there been an issue with really wanting Barbie stopped. The problem all goes back to social media and Rob Scott shows that by claiming, “77 percent agree that misuse of technology can be harmful to young children, and 72 percent agreed that loud noise from devices can result in hearing loss. Still parents are opting for technology distractions to keep their children busy – more than half reported using technology to keep kids ages 3 and younger entertained (Scott). I know kids as young as six who have and run social media accounts and their parents have no worries. This is the problem. Parents are scared of Barbies but let children run around sucking their thumbs with one hand and holding an iPad in another. We have seen from studies and personal experience that social media is the influencer and children compare themselves to other people. Parents need to be better educated and knowledgeable in what is affecting their children. Yes, I understand Barbie is not proportioned but like the article on THETALKO.COM says, “We should be educating kids at school about self-love and self-care. It seems like a huge waste that such important issues aren’t being talked about in an educational setting. It’s just not enough for the conversation to be about a Barbie doll (Tsintziras). Along with it being a waste of conversation among children it is a waste in conversation among adults. Change the conversation. Raise awareness about social media influence and start the conversation about knowing when your child is emotionally mature enough to handle the pressure social media brings.

Some may still question and ask about the case of Cindy Jackson. Cindy Jackson was a woman who was called the female Barbie. She wanted to look exactly like Barbie and spent $55,000 on twenty surgeries (“Barbie and Body Image”). However, her “fixation” on being Barbie did not originate from Barbie. She decided that she wanted to look different when she saw how pretty and noticeable her sister was and how she was not. It was then decided that she would take up Barbie as someone she wanted to look like. It was not until she was thirty-three that this transformation happened so to say that Barbie influenced it when she was a child is far beyond an extreme assumption especially with her claiming her transformation was triggered because of the comparison with her sister (Leung). Another problem some may have is that social media cannot be controlled so there is no point in putting efforts into trying to withhold it from children. If you supported changing Barbie and you ask this question, then my answer is that you tried to control a doll so we are in the same boat. But, there actually are ways to control social media. It may make your children mad, but would you rather them be mad at you or be struggling with a lack of self-love? The first way is by blocking access (Grahl). There is an app for everything and my own parents have apps that can block usage to websites and apps that they deem to be destructive. They do not use them anymore but honestly they protected me when I purposely was trying to seek out unhealthy things. The next is limiting their time. By limiting their time, it will give them breaks from being constantly bombarded from pictures that they are comparing themselves too. Get them away from Instagram and Facebook and use that time to remind them how loved and beautiful that they are. Lastly take away their phones at night. From personal experience the most destructive behavior begins at night. For some reason the most destructive people come out on the internet at night and prey on the dwindling, depressed emotions of people who have low self-esteem. Just trust me on this one, I know what I am talking about. I fell into that trap too many times and it’s not worth it.

Barbie’s are not the causing factor and it is time that we leave toys be and focus on the impact that actual humans have on each other. The money going towards changing Barbie and coming up with new shapes to help body positivity should be put towards something that will actually help in that area. Mattel could give money to NEDA or even put money towards more research efforts that find better ways to protect children from social medias influence. Give the money to people who actually know how to handle these situations and will not make things worse by bringing about more problems. Social media is a great thing that helps us connect with people and learn more everyday but we need to be smart consumers and guard what information comes into our families and ourselves.
