Remember when you were a young child and your mother took you to Toys R Us? I know I do. Walking into the store, I always made a beeline to that aisle that was covered in pink. Gazing up at all the Barbie dolls, my imagination started to go wild as I looked at my future adventure partner. I just couldn’t wait to get my new doll home and start my journey into the rain forest with her.
During my travels with Barbie, I never once took notice of her body shape. That didn’t matter to me because I was too young to understand what a body type even was. In recent years, however, mothers all over have been raising Cain because they say Barbie doll bodies are “unrealistic” and “make their children self-conscious”. This belief is something I wholeheartedly disagree with. If anything, I believe that changing Barbie’s shape from the original type only brings more attention to negative body awareness. Imagine, for example, two little girls are playing with their Barbie dolls. One girl has the original shaped Barbie and the other has a more “realistically curvy” Barbie. As the girls are dressing their dolls to attend a party, the girl that has the realistic Barbie grabs a skirt that only fits the originally shaped doll. She then begins to question why her Barbie can’t fit into the skirt. That’s when she finally sees that her doll is too big and she immediately discards it, reaching for the original shaped Barbie that can fit inside the skirt. This can be the start of a mother’s worst nightmare. If the child decides that she doesn’t like the more realistic Barbie, she can take that dislike and transfer it into her daily life. She’s suddenly afraid to eat because she doesn’t want to be like her “big” Barbie doll. She wants to be able to fit into the same skinny clothes that the originally shaped doll can fit into. Now, there is a problem that could have been avoided.
By changing Barbie’s shape, there is attention being brought to an issue that shouldn’t even be an issue for the age group that Barbie dolls are targeted towards. Barbie dolls are supposed to help children express and encourage their creativity and imagination. The cute clothes that the doll comes with are just a bonus. The doll itself does not make children self-conscious. Society does that. Society tells everyone, especially young girls, that if you aren’t skinny, you aren’t pretty. As wrong as it is, this begins to happen as soon as girls start to outgrow playing with their Barbie dolls and it lasts for the rest of their lives. Thus, you have the body-conscious mothers that express their dislike for the originally shaped doll. That’s what society considers beautiful and they don’t fit the mold (even though no one really does). The doll, in theory, is a good idea, but in execution it does the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to: it brings negative attention to body types. In my opinion, these dolls, in the long run, will bring more harm than good. Barbie dolls are supposed to inspire girls to dream big while encouraging them to love themselves. This is more important than the shape of a plastic toy. Kids don’t care what Barbie’s body looks like, the parents do. Children just want to dream and have fun and if their attention is suddenly brought to the doll’s size, and why body shapes are “important”, that not only takes away from the adventure but it takes their confidence away as well.
I, personally, would not recommend anyone to give a realistic shape Barbie doll to their child. No parent wants their kid to feel insecure about themselves, and that is exactly what these realistic Barbie dolls will do. After all, what’s more important at the end of the day? A child’s happiness, or an assurance to self-conscious adults that they’re “normal” sized?
