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Barbies Found to Have a Negative Effect on Young Girls' Development

Writer's picture: Hannah LevinHannah Levin

Warning: mention of eating disorders and body image

It’s no longer a question that young girls are growing up with unrealistic standards for themselves. But the worst part of this is that it’s caused by so many things, even the toys they are surrounded with. Something as harmless as a Barbie doll has unknowingly also affected girls as they grow up, adults are finding themselves trying to change themselves, later linking it back to their childhood. While these dolls are marketed to inspire girls, what they are really doing is taking away a young girl's chance of being what she really wants to be. Taking away her aspirations, making them feel like they have to sexualise themselves to be liked.

 

What negative effects have been caused to young girls by the body images from Barbies?

Barbies have not just caused negative physical effects on young girls but also have negatively affected their mental health. Barbies are the most popular toys for young girls to be playing with. The consequence of this is that for many years girls have been growing up with the idea that the ‘perfect body’ is Barbie's body, a thin waist and a large bust. These dolls have a body size that would translate to a dangerously thin body for a woman to sustain (Renee Engeln Ph.D. 2021) which puts young girls at risk when they try to achieve these body types. This is also the age during which girls often begin to feel these negative effects and the objectification of women’s bodies in our society. These young girls have been found to develop depression but also severe eating disorders or body dysmorphia. 


In the National Library of Medicine, I was able to find information supporting the idea of young girls being negatively affected by Barbies supported by some statistics. Some girls were tested to see the effects of playing with thin dolls on body image and their food intake by 6 -10 year old Dutch Girls. They were randomly given thin dolls such as Barbie, an average-sized doll, or Legos in a non-controlled environment. After 10 min, they participated in a taste test and completed some questions about body image. It was found that girls who played with the average-sized doll ate significantly more food than the girls who played with the thinner, more unrealistic Barbie dolls. Statistics say that girls between the ages of 5.5 to 7.5 years old averaged to have lower body esteem scores and a more vast lack of knowledge between their ideal unrealistic body sizes and the actual adult body sizes that are able to sustain life. Dittmar et al. (2006) explained that the age difference they found can be justified by the fact that girls under the age of 7.5 are still developing how they see their bodies and developing insecurities or still finding how they should be maintaining a healthy body,  therefore they are using Barbie as a reference point of what they should be looking like. It was concluded that Barbie dolls are causing more harm to younger girls, exposing them to restrictive eating and body obsession. (Doeschka J. Anschutz and Rutger C. M. E. Engels, 2010)


This is still an ongoing issue with the younger generation. Barbie has been a part of our society for many years now continuously affecting girls negatively. It has become ‘normal’ now that if you have been influenced in any way by Barbie it's called the Barbie effect or Barbie doll syndrome. Adolescents are shown unrealistic beauty standards through the dolls that they play with, leading them to believe they have to look like this. When they are unable to achieve these bodies it begins to bring out many insecurities and bad mindsets or behaviours. Unfortunately, The doll with an unnatural figure will continue to be what young girls look up to if the manufacturers do not make a change to her appearance.

  

How have these insecurities developed in young girls and affected them into adulthood?

As girls grow up they believe they need to grow up fast and look more adult just like Barbie. Furthermore, when they've grown up into an adult they are still affected by this unrealistic doll but they may just be unaware of it. The average age for a girl's view on body image to start developing is between the ages of 6-11 years old. This is extremely young considering they have hardly begun puberty. It is the age that young girls start to believe they have to look a certain way. These insecurities, later on, carry on into adulthood, where it can actually get worse for them. The time period where these insecurities are either fixed or carried on into adulthood is the teen years (Renee Engeln PhD 2021). Teens are angry at Barbie that she has the ‘perfect’ body and they cannot achieve this without being unhappy. They begin to feel badly in comparison to her and feel uncomfortable which sooner leads to restrictive adulthood. (Karen E. Dill-Shackleford, 2016)


In a Dr Drew TV interview, a student Galia Slayen made a life-sized Barbie doll to show teenage girls her age what they would look like if they were to try to have the ‘perfect’ body that Barbie has and to highlight eating disorders. Galia did this as she had experienced feeling like she needed to look a certain way and struggled with the mental and physical issues that she developed when she was younger. This life-sized Barbie was a huge eye-opener for these girls as they were able to properly see the long-term effects of their adulthood if they were to continue the way they were. 


Similarly, Clueless star Elisa Donavan had struggled with an eating disorder caused by the media and later on realised that Barbie had a long-term effect on her, even though she was now an adult and did not have anything to do with Barbie for many years. She was in recovery for 16 years and this began to take over her life like it does for many other adults or young females. It got to a point where Donavan wasn't functioning anymore and her life became so small all because of Barbie and the media that made her feel like her body wasn't good the way it previously was. She got down between 40-45 kg which is the bare minimum for a woman to survive on, hoping to get more and more closer to the ‘perfect’ Barbie body. Donavan later said that she wishes that as a student she could have been exposed to this real-life Barbie because she believes that she would have realised that what she grew up thinking was ‘perfect’ wasn't so perfect after all. (Elisa Donavan, 2014)  

Would you still support the Barbie franchise? Even though at the time of adolescence we feel like it's not affecting us, in the future we may begin to feel the want for the ‘perfect body’ but not realise where we got that idea from. This bit of research also teaches us as young women not to take everything on ourselves and please other people by having the boy that the media portrays ‘ beautiful’ and ‘worthy’ women to have. Therefore the answer to my second question is yes, the insecurities developed through Barbie in our childhood affect you later on in your adulthood.


What harmful messages have been promoted by these toys? 

By reading through this report you can see that the Barbie dolls that girls idolise have spread many harmful messages to them, some without them realising. For many years Barbies have been marketed to young girls. These dolls have super thin bodies, with big busts and narrow waists that would be extremely unhealthy to try and sustain. These Barbie doll bodies would translate to a thin human body that would not be ideal for a woman and especially a growing girl (Psychology Today, 2021). Girls have developed severe eating disorders and depression because when they look at these dolls they are given the message that this is what they need to look like. 


While researching the harmful messages promoted by Barbies I found an article In the Atlantic newspaper called ‘ Yes, Even Doctor Barbie Sends Girls the Wrong Message’. The tagline for Barbie is ‘You can be anything’ but unfortunately this is not what young girls are hearing. In 2014 a study was done on 4-7 year old girls which found that playing with Barbie dolls limited girl's perceptions about what they could be or do in the future. Studies show that Barbie’s sexualized body, her slim-fit jeans ( Doctor Barbie), or her very small minidress (Dentist Barbie) may be the cause for a young girl's aspirations changing. There are many reasons for this but the most outstanding reason is that maybe playing with sexualized and unrealistically thin dolls makes girls think about what they look like more and focus less on their aspirations. 


Another study was done of more than a hundred girls, aged 3-6 years old, and found that almost a third of them would like to change something about their physical appearance and about a third shared that their ideal figure was thinner than their current size and wished to look like Barbie.  This circles us back to this harmful doll. The sexualization of young girls and women is not all Barbie's fault but, Barbie is one of the reasons that the harmful message of unrealistic body types/sexualisation is out there. (Marianne Cooper the Atlantic 2014)


Barbie is sending out the wrong message to growing girls that could be potentially harming them. It proves yet again that we need to be careful in the companies we are supporting. The Mattel toy company says that Barbie tells you to be ‘what you want to be’ but the doll is actually sending the opposite message. The message that young girls are receiving is to be anything you aspire to be. Just make sure that you look beautiful and sexy doing it. Revolve your whole life about what you look like and always make sure to monitor what you eat. This could mean you will accomplish less in your life, but for a female, having the others around you think you are attractive should be your main goal. (Marianne Cooper, the Atlantic, 2014)



Alexander. D. (2014)  Dr Drew  - Barbies Effect of Body Image. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uO4HufBCjY


Anschutz. D and Engels. R (2010) The Effects of Playing with Thin Dolls on Body Image and Food Intake in Young Girls. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991547/


Cooper. M. (2015) Yes, Even Doctor Barbie Sends Girls the Wrong Message. Retrieved from 


Dill- Shackeleford. K. (2016) Barbie evokes suffering in girls, scorn in teens and finally gets reshaped. Retrieved from 


Engeln. R. (2021) Barbies May do Damage Realistic Dolls cant Undo. Retrieved from 


Goulopoulos. S. (2021). Barbies may irreparably alter how young girls perceive their bodies. Retrieved from.

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Oct 20, 2024


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