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Media and its influence on body image
Media influence on female body image
Media and its influence on body image
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Why is it we allow toys do dictate how we live our lives or how are lives are molded? Why is it a Barbie World? We all know and love the doll, manufactured by Mattel, named “Barbie”. She was and is a part of every little girl’s childhood in one-way or another. She gave every little girl the hope she needed to believe that she could be anything she set her mind to through play, dress-up, movies etc. Barbie could be a Veterinarian, a Doctor, a Lawyer, and even an Astronaut. She promotes and gives little girls the right to dream of being anything they want to be. There are so many positives, as children learn their passions and desires through play. However, and, unfortunately there are some very big negatives that go along with having …show more content…
It is most often associated with pre-teenage and adolescent females but is applicable to any age group. A person with Barbie Syndrome attempts to emulate the doll’s physical appearance, even though the doll has attainable body proportions (Wall Street Journal). Self-esteem for girls is a sensitive topic, because odds are most girls want to change something about themselves. Whether it is her hair color, skin color, eye color, and even body shape. Some sources say that one culprit is the fictional person Barbie, this is due to her unrealistic body and the fact she’s tall, blonde, and blue eyed. "Girls exposed to Barbie reported lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape" than those who had been given dolls reflecting larger body types or no dolls at all” (CNN). Its been shown that girls who played with her as kids have this desire to look just like her because society has put this pressure on girls that in order to be pretty you have to be a tall size 2 blonde, this is believed to create an endemic of girls, teens and adolescents with anorexia. When Mattel decided to create these new dolls to help promote a healthy body image for young girls who can’t look like the original Barbie, its made society redefine what it means to be pretty. But, why have we as a society allowed for this toy to define our standards of beauty? One article from Time Magazine has said that this doll has lead girls to not only feeling bad about themselves, but has made eating disorders more prevalent. “The doll has led many girls toward eating disorders, body image issues, physical transformation, and lowered confidence” (Time
By this time Barbie was a very popular doll that a lot of young girls wanted to have in their hands. Mothers and other parents were liking the doll because she provided a sense of what the “grown-up” world would be like. Plus, a lot of girl’s loved playing dress up and playing pretend house wife. But Barbie was more than just the house wife, Barbie has a career, many of them and she was a fashion icon. Than Barbie, the classic Caucasian, bond headed went even farther. “In the 80s, she joined the multicultural movement and was depicted as African-American, Latina, and Asian”, (Friedman, 2006). Now, not only could girl choose what profession and career they wanted their dolls to be, but now they could choose the race they were and maker Barbie more like their own. Yet still parents started to notice the Barbie’s measurements and how unrealistic they were. They started to worry about of this would have a negative impact on their children when they grew up to be adults. I can use this article because it explains that Barbie came in different race now but her measurements were so unrealistic. This causes concern and many people still today wonder if Barbie has a part in why women stress over their body
“If Barbie was designed by a man, suddenly a lot of things made sense to me,” says Emily Prager in her essay “Our Barbies, Ourselves” (Prager 354). Prager’s purpose for writing this essay is to explain the history of Barbie and how the doll itself has influenced and continue to influence our society today. Prager is appealing to the average girl, to those who can relate to the way she felt growing up with Barbie seen as the ideal woman. Emily Prager uses a constant shift between a formal and informal tone to effectively communicate her ideas that we view women today based upon the unrealistic expectations set forth by Barbie. By adopting this strategy she avoids making readers feel attacked and therefore
At the beginning of "Barbie Doll", it reads "This girlchild was born as usual". This line shows that their is nothing wrong with this girl. She is your average child that plays with "dolls that pee-pee" and " miniature GE stoves and irons". She does not realize that anything is wrong with her until "a classmate said: You have a great big nose and fat legs". She was normal and happy, then society points out that she is different then the model in Seventeen magazine.
Martin, Melanie. “Negative Effects of Barbie on Girls.” eHow. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
It has recently been brought up that media influences girls in pre-adolescence, which is highly likely since most young girls idolize Barbie (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). “Were Barbie a flesh-and-blood woman, her waist would be 39% smaller than that of anorexic patients, and her body weight would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate” (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). Most young girls wish that they could look like Barbie when they grew up, but if they knew the reality of having her measurements, their perceptions would probably change. Children frequently fantasize about who they will be, what they will do, and how they will look when they grow into adulthood. Advertisers use women that are abnormally thin, and even airbrush them to make them appear thinner.
Imagine being a 5 year old girl playing with baby dolls and brushing your Barbie doll’s hair and feeling fat. A 5 year old feeling fat sounds crazy, right? Well with the influence Barbie has had for years is causing girls younger and younger to feel that their body is not “perfect”. Eating disorders, unrealistic expectations, and self-confidence are all at jeopardy once a young girl is rewarded with her first Barbie doll.
Marge Piercy wrote the Barbie Doll poem in 1973, during the woman’s movement. The title of the poem Barbie Doll, symbolizes how females are supposed to appear into the society. In the poem Barbie Doll, the main character was a girl. She was described as a usual child when she was born. Meaning that she had normal features that any person could ever have. Piercy used “wee lipstick the color of cherry candy” as a smile to describe the child before she has hit puberty. After the character hit puberty, the classmates in her class began to tease her saying “you have a big nose and fat legs.” (Piercy pg. 1) Having a big nose and a fat leg is the opposite of what females are supposed to be presented as in the gender stereotype. In the society that the girl lives in, follows the gender stereotypes that presented females as a petite figure with a slender body. These expectations made the character go insane. She wanted to fit into the society so she “cut off her nose and legs and offered them up.” (Piercy pg. 1) Even though the girl was “healthy, tested intelligent…” (Piercy pg. 1) no one saw that in her, but her appearances. In the end of the poem the girl end up dying, a...
Whilst various studies illustrate that genetic vulnerabilities can be the origin of developing eating disorders, Bordo claims that the act of pursuing femininity is a cultural problem. Culture is seen as the “trigger” and “smoking gun” towards body image problems women suffer from nowadays. Some examples of cultural images that contribute to body image issues include the Barbie doll, which presents an unrealistic beauty standard for the body. For example, the waist-hip ratio of the Barbie doll is 0.56 (waist circumference is 56% of hip measurement), however the average woman’s value is 0.80. Additionally, the legs of Barbie are 50% longer than the measurement of her arms, where the measurement for an average woman would be 20%, with a 16-inch girth (Golgowski, 2013). Further, other cultural images are presented from the fashion industry, where models that are displayed weigh 107 pounds and are 5 foot 10 inches tall, whereas the average American woman weighs 143 pounds and are 5 foot 4 inches tall (Bordo, 2013). This disparity in measurements underline the unrealistic and unattainable body image the culture represents, however serves as a source
What is the Barbie syndrome ? a question posed by many that glace through the title on the top of this paper As defined by Farlex “The drive, often of adolescent girls, to attain impossible standards of beauty, projected by toys—e. g., Mattel’s Barbie Doll—and the media, resulting in failure and frustration, issues related to body image, eating disorders, and self-image," this is a formal definition of the Barbie syndrome.The people that the Barbie syndrome it effects are widespread and is not inclusive to women this syndrome also affects men to. causing much damage to their mental and physical health. Britannica Encyclopedia states that “Barbie is a plastic doll, 11.9 inches tall, with the figure of an adult woman that was introduced in 1959 by Mattel Inc.”1
Barbie Dolls have been around since 1959 and what just seemed to be a harmless doll for young girls to play with, turned to a doll that would make every little girl worry about their insecurities. The Barbie doll was made to be the perfect example of what a girl is supposed to be. There has been a lot of controversy surround Barbie dolls because of the effects that it can have on little girls growing up. All girls that grew up playing with Barbies always expected that one day they grow up to be like Barbie. To much of their surprise they never grew up to be like Barbie because no one could ever been as perfect as Barbie. Another major problem with Barbie was that she was that Barbie only came in one color. Barbies were caucasian with blonde hair and blue eyes. For all the girls that did not have all of that it brought many insecurities growing up. In the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy, Piercy writes a story about a nameless girl that lived a
Why is it a bad thing for barbie to have all of those material items when kids grow up with the main goal to make money and have nice things. As people would say barbie causes the idea and if the effect of bankruptcy in young teens but if young teens are going to go bankrupt it is not going to be because of a doll they played with when they were
Those perfect days as a child when your countless days were filled with playtime. The time to set up those houses and dress the dolls up, and act out the future. “Through their play Barbara imagined their lives as adults. They used the dolls to reflect the adult world around them. They would sit and carry on conversations, making the dolls real people” (Ruth Handler). As a young child, it is all you look forward to in your future: being successful and confident, loved and cherished. Many dolls were used to project this. Specifically, the Barbie. Barbie is a positive role model girl should look up to for confidence and inspiration. She is a talented and educated career woman, self-sufficient in every aspect of her life, and a stunning example to young girls the body that is healthy and fit.
According to Lisa Belkin, Barbie is good for society because she’s fun to play with and she encourages little girls to use their imagination and dream big. Many young girls who play with Barbie dolls have realized that she is just a doll. Some of these little girls don’t have the desire to look like Barbie; they just think Barbie is just a doll that they play with and leave them everywhere. At a young age girls are given their first Barbie doll and thought what “perfect” should be. Barbie portrays the perfect image and life. Not only is Barbie tall, skinny, and beautiful, she has all the luxurious accessories to match her perfect life. To go along with her perfect life she is accompanied with the perfect boyfriend, family and dream house.At a young age girls are also being influenced by this doll, what they should look like, and what kind of life they sgould lead. Young girls strive to achieve this look which is life threatening to obtain. Regardless to the changes they made to Barbie, she is still far from real. Little girls that are mature enough don’t strive to look like Barbie because she’s just a plastic doll.(Debate.org, 9). According to “The Intentions behind the creation of Barbie”, Barbie dolls ...
When I was very young, I owned very many Barbie dolls. To me, they were just so beautiful, and flawless, and I loved them very much. But the Barbie that said the most to me was the President Barbie. This spoke to me. It said that anyone, anywhere, of any gender, socioeconomic status, background, sexuality, ethnicity, race, or belief system could be anything they ever wanted to be, as long as they worked hard enough to achieve it. And this is a very important message, and it is a message that Barbie sends to people every day, all over the world.
Barbie, a doll manufactured by Mattel, Inc., encourages an unrealistic body image, racial insensitivity, and contradictive goals, and it is having a negative influence on young girls everywhere. Launched in March 1959 by Ruth Handler, an American business woman and president of Mattel, Inc., Barbie quickly became popular and has gone on to sell three dolls every second, in over one hundred and fifty countries. However, Barbie’s rise to success has not been wholly positive – there have been numerous controversies, parodies, and lawsuits, all addressing a number of issues. One such issue is how Barbie promotes an unrealistic and unobtainable body image. For example, to scale, Barbie is five feet, nine inches tall, has a thirty six inch chest, eighteen inch waist, and thirty three inch hips. Had Barbie been a real person, she would not be able to walk, much less hold her head up. Secondly, Barbie is racially insensitive and perpetuates stereotypes. “Mexico Barbie,” from Barbie’s “ethnic” line, comes with a passport and a Chihuahua, as well as stereotypical red lace ribbons in her hair. Lastly, Barbie portrays goals that are both unobtainable and contradictive. Barbie has had a variety of careers, such as being a doctor, astronaut, and President of the United States, but also engages in stereotypical domestic activities, such as cleaning and baking. These characteristics are affecting young girls in a time when they are most developmentally susceptible, and teaching them a number of negative lessons.