Analysis of the Influence of the Barbie Doll on Young Girls

In this paper I'm going to discuss how Barbie effects young girls. I wanted to research deeper into this topic because I am very interested in body image and the things that affect it, as I believe that this topic is especially relevant to teenage girls in the modern world. I also want to learn more about how consumer complaints affected Mattel and the Barbie brand. I will be researching both sides of the argument (consumer and company), and I am interested to see on one hand the people who were angry that their children were being given unrealistic ideals, and the other Mattel who did not want to ‘ruin’ their brand, arguing through their marketing department that they did not feel showing skinny girls as the front of their brand did not affect their target audience, and that it did not resonate deeply on the young girls or have any lasting consequences, mentally or physically.

The Beginnings of Barbie and Mattel

Barbie started out as a doll that encompassed the American dream, according to Peter Som, with the creator, Ruth Handler, saying that “Barbie has always represented the fact that a woman has choices”. In 1946, World War II was over, there was a baby boom, so toys were in demand, which really helped their sales take off and became popular throughout the world. Their first major toy that was produced was their ‘burp gun’, a toy that focused solely on pleasing children, as opposed to the parents or other adults. And by the day before Christmas, they had all sold out. As a result of this feedback, Handler knew exactly the toy that would appeal in this way to girls, it is now estimated that over a billion Barbie dolls have been sold worldwide in over 150 countries, with Mattel claiming that three Barbie dolls are sold every second.

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Body Esteem in Young Girls and the Causes for Low Body Esteem

Over 64% of girls under 17 that took part in my survey (43 girls from Wellington College aged 13 to 18) feel that the media drives their appearance anxiety. These medias have become idealistic projections of what were meant to look like, and they all create huge impressions on everyone; as stated by Compass Youth, even David Cameron was said to be airbrushed in one of his campaigns in 2010.

There are many factors that make some people more likely to develop a low satisfaction with their bodies. Some include:

• Age: body image is frequently changed and shaped during late child-hood, but it can affect someone of any age.
• Low self-esteem and depression: this means that you are more vulnerable to believing that you are not good enough
• Bullying: people who get teased at school or bullied about their bodies, have a highly-increased risk of developing eating or mental disorders as a result of their lowered self-esteem by peers.
• Body size: people with a larger body size have an increased risk of body dissatisfaction.

The physiological world and the sociological world have discovered that the use of media to portray images of airbrushed or idealistic figures has a mental effect and changes the ways in which we act and how our bodies behave. As well as mental influences, it also physically affects you: your hair becomes thinner and gets brittle, muscles become weak, your joints swell and you are more likely to fracture or break a bone. Additionally, your kidneys become more likely to get stones, you can get constipation, or ironically, bloating, and your brain and nerves can’t function properly.

How Barbies Can Have a Negative Effect on the Body Esteem of Young Girls

Barbies negatively affect the minds and opinions of girls by looking unnaturally, but making the girls believe that this is what is normal as they have seen this type of body every day since they started playing with toys. But when issues like low self-esteem start seriously effecting children so young (41% of girls surveyed saying they first had barbies from an early age of 1-4), it becomes harder to change their point of view. According to Penn State, “If Barbie were a real woman, her neck would be twice as long as, and six inches thinner than the average female. She wouldn’t be able to life with her own head! Barbie’s waist would be 16-inches in circumference (smaller than her head), and it means her body would only have room for half a liver and a few inches of intestines”. Barbie would also be 5’9” and weigh 110 pounds (the average woman is 154 ponds, according to BBC News). In addition, her fat percentage would be so low, that she would not be able to menstruate, or live a healthy life. She would literally have to move herself on all fours, because or her distorted proportions.

77% of girls I surveyed agree that Barbies have a bad influence on young girls by putting an unachievable ideal out to children. In the 1960s, Mattel rode the wave of Barbie’s popularity and introduced a new design called ‘Slumber Party Barbie’. The doll came complete with a diet book, scale, a hairbrush and sign that said ‘How to lose weight? Don’t eat’. Even more shockingly, the scale that came with Barbie only went up to 110 pounds. This is another example of where Barbie has been showing girls a wrong impression of what they are ‘meant’ to be behaving like, but what is not realistic at all – you would have to be anorexic or have to have at least six ribs removed in order to achieve Barbies look of a 16-inch waist.

Studies have shown that body image is most unstable and receptive to influences at ages five to eight which is the peak time when girls play with Barbies, according to my survey, so it is vital that markets portray the correct behavior to them in order to reduce the problems for those girls later in life. In 2006, researchers in the United Kingdom published a study in which they gave 162 British girls, ages five to eight, picture books that either didn't show bodies at all, or books that featured Barbie, or Emme, a more realistically proportioned doll. After the girls looked at the books, researchers asked them questions about their body image. Some researchers even believe that Barbie can influence the choice of job girls make in their futures stating that “Barbie conveys a sexualized world”, despite the fact that Barbie is meant to encompass an independent woman who can choose whatever job she wants – she even ‘ran for president’ in 2008. Younger girls who read the Barbie books were more dissatisfied with their bodies than those who read the Emme or body-less books. However, for the oldest girls, ages seven and a half to eight and a half, the books they read didn't affect their body image; overall, older girls had greater body dissatisfaction, regardless of which books they looked at. This demonstrates that above the age of 7, girls minds have, for the most part, already been made up on their standings on their bodies.

How Did These Effects Cause Mattel to Change Their Design and Why They Resisted

At first the Mattel workers did not believe that changing their model was necessary and that it had no lasting effect on children. In as recently as 2014, Kim Culmone, Barbie’s vice president of design, stated there was no reason to alter the doll's proportions to be more realistic. However, in October Mattel announced a 14% global drop in Barbie sales, the eighth consecutive season in which numbers fell, they gave in saying. “To allow for a new variety in body type seemed like the natural progression of an evolution of a brand that has always strived to really reflect the culture and be current”, said Robert Best, one of the lead designers on the Barbie brand.

The Response from Consumers to the New Designs

On the other hand, consumers are grateful for the first significant change in Barbie's body size since she first hit shelves in 1959. And they think that by introducing the curvy barbies, girls will be helped to feel a little less pressure. Some believe that it is the first significant change in Barbie’s body since she first hit the shelves in 1959. However, one source states that sales did drop by 15% as a result of the release of curvy dolls (though this is not from a very reliable source and I have disproved that statistic from other sources), and a more negative response such as this one from Virgie Tovar, a body positive activist: “As a child, I honestly think I would have preferred the traditionally thin Barbie because I had already been taught to hate myself and my body”. But I have the view that the realistic dolls will help girls become able to accept their bodies from a young age, because they are now able to relate to their toys like they have never been able to de before, it has also been discovered that girls and boys enjoy toys which look like them as they feel more connected to their games and stories. This will also embed a clearer message about body ideals to young girls. 87% of the people I surveyed also agree that the new models of Barbie are going to be a good thing for girls in the future.

The worldwide sales of Barbie were decreasing quite quickly from 2012 until 2015 (decreasing by 369.4 million USD from 2012 to 2015), then in January, when the modifications to Barbie were made, the sales increased from 905.9 million USD in 2015, and to 971.8 USD in 2016. This shows that the consumers valued Mattel’s changes and therefore bought more, which was as Mattel planned, as they were receiving increasing amounts of complaints, as mothers become more aware of the lasting effects that Barbies can have on young girls’ ideas about body image.

Conclusion

Overall, I believe that Barbies impact girls in many negative ways from a young age, by implanting false goals in their head for them to compare themselves to, however these impacts were not the direct cause for Mattel to add curvy, tall and petite dolls to their line, I believe that their drop in sales was. However, to an extent the incorrect body ideals Barbies put out did make Mattel change their design because the consumers were unhappy as a result of the research that had bought to light the negative lasting mental impacts that Barbie has on children, so then they would stop buying the dolls, which then lead on to the sales dropping in numbers, then causing Mattel to feel the need to change their doll or else their business would stop being successful. Luckily for Mattel, this did work and their sales increased by 65.0 million USD from 2015 to 2016, however this did not last as the sales had decreased again by 2% since the previous year.