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Essay On Barbie Doll

1415 Words6 Pages

Body vs. Barbie
Barbie dolls are made to be small, skinny, fashionable, and kid friendly. However, that friendly doll can have so much negativity involved with it. Young girls have to play with a doll that may have a smaller waist, smaller stomach, smaller legs, and smaller thighs. Young girls have to look at a Barbie doll that has an unhealthy and unrealistic body. Playing with a toy that is unrealistic makes a girl want to have a smaller figure. Barbie makes young girls feel dissatisfied with their body and appearance. Toys such as Barbie dolls can affect a child’s perception of body image.
A Barbie doll that is skinny and has an unrealistic figure does not help with young girls feeling dissatisfied with their body. The Barbie doll would only cause for the young girls to wonder why they can’t they be the same size as the doll. According to Zali Yager, “Almost 40% of children are thought to be dissatisfied with the way they look, and girls as young as five report weight concerns and express a desire to be thinner”. Young girls have to play with a doll that looks nothing like them and doesn’t mirror their …show more content…

Morris and D. Katzman, “…body dissastisfaction [sic] can lead to serious consequences such as depressed affect and unhealthy eating behaviors, particularly dieting, which, in turn, is a precursor of eating disorders” (qtd. in “Barbies, Self-Image and Eating Disorders”). A child playing with a Barbie doll may experience these consequences because they have the desire to be skinny and thin to feel as beautiful as a Barbie doll. The child may think they have to take those drastic steps to be liked by society. They may think they have to stop eating or diet to get as thin as Barbie. When these girls feel like they have to diet they go to the extreme by not eating at all or forcing themselves to throw up. Barbie does are affecting their perception of body

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