Barbie's Unrealistic Body Image For Young Girls

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Introduction Every three seconds, somewhere in the world there is one Barbie doll sold (Barbie). That means 28,800 Barbie Dolls are sold around the world every day. Barbie has become a playtime favorite. She has had close to 150 careers, represented more than 40 different nationalities and collaborated with more than 75 different fashion designers (Barbie). She has been a role model to young girls for 55 years and hasn’t changed one bit! But how has Barbie’s infinite and new changing beauty affected young girls? In today’s time, self-image is everything. People spend thousands of dollars every year trying to fit the ‘mold’ that society has created. Although Barbie has created joy for many on holidays and birthdays for over half a century, is her perfect hourglass, flawless skin and hair really the best “model” for our young women to look for? Barbie creates an unrealistic body image for young girls…show more content…
She was called the “shapely teenage fashion model” and was sold for only three dollars. The idea to create the doll came when Ruth saw her daughter playing with her paper dolls. She then realized that Barbra was growing up and out growing the dolls, Ruth decided that her little need a three-dimensional representation. The development of Barbie created uproar in the era where ‘teenager” was a new and rather “sexy” word. Her almond shaped body and heavily painted face was perceived as “sleazy”. Although many mothers were in disapproval of the doll, young girls everywhere fell in love with Barbie as she became a role model. Later models allowed the girls to change Barbie’s clothes, but this was where the real problem started. Little girls no longer saw the doll as a play time toy, but as something they wanted to imitate. Whether Barbie was in her apron cooking or in a festive party dress socializing; she was teaching girls what society expected from them (Inventing

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