I watched the “Top 10 Toys” on TV this evening. The Barbie Doll came in 3d(?). Beat out by theYO-YO!
Noticing how skinny Barbie is, could she be the cause of Anorexia & Bulimarexia so common among teenage girls? They for years saw Barbie as the ideal teenage immage, and try to be as thin as she. I think that I may have discovered a medical break-through! Get Mattel to put more “weight” on Barbie & teens will not work so hard to be skinny!
Um, I don’t think that will work. Just a guess here, but I suspect women primarily aspire toward what men (assuming they’re straight women) find attractive. If I’m wrong, I apologize.
But if I’m right, I guarantee your project won’t work. A fat barbie won’t change my opinion of what constitutes an attractive female form. The same way I didn’t derive my current opinion based on a plastic doll.
If you say it, mean it. If you mean it, do it.
If you do it, live it. If you live it, say it.
I don’t mean that Barbie should be
made “fat”, just have her size &
shape conform with the medically
recommended norm. I think girls get
an unconscious desire to grow up to
be like her, a difficulty for many,
if not all.
I believe they did make her a little more realistic. Made the legs thicker and the breasts a little smaller. I think the endless barage of skinnier-than-Starvin’-Marvin models and actresses are more to blame. Barbie isn’t a real person getting fame and fortune for being unhealthy, they are.
slightly off-topic, but attempts to market the barbie doll in Japan failed quite miserably until Mattel created a version of the doll with more asian proportions. Smaller breasts especially. After they redid the doll’s figure it sold like wildfire.
The reason Barbie is chaped that was is that she has to look of normal proportions when dressed. The tiny clothes have a thickness so that if Barbie looked “normal” when naked, she would look tubby when covered by all those clothes.
That having been said, I had Barbie dolls when I was a kid and so did my sister, and we grew up with perfectly good self-images. I think most girls are smart enough to know they’re just dolls.