Being Thin Is In... In 3rd Grade

When I think of being in elementary school again, I imagine myself learning cursive, memorizing timetables, playing kickball at recess, and having backyard play-dates with my best friends after school. The important things on my mind were the newly released Beanie Babies I had to have and what snacks I could trade with my friends to get those fruit roll-ups my mom never bought.
These days kids have more on their minds than just stuffed animals and math problems though.

A study of 261 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders assessed the children's view of their current body shape.
The results found that over 50% of the children reported they were "dissatisfied" with their current body shape.
(Skemp-Arlt, 2006)

41.8% of those children wanted to be thinner. Almost half of the surveyed 8-11 year-olds didn't like the way they looked and wanted to lose body weight.


There's no other way for me to describe these statistics other than to say that those numbers just make me sad. When kids are growing up, starting to get a sense of the world and gaining life experience, it is heartbreaking to know that part of their social education is learning that their bodies just aren't good enough.


So what's the relevance between children's body dissatisfaction and Barbie?

According to a journal article published in the American Psychological Association, there definitely is a correlation between Barbie and young girls' low self-esteem.

The journal article was titled "Does Barbie Make Girls Want to be Thin? The Effect of Experimental Exposure to Images of Dolls on the Body Image of 5-8 Year Old Girls." Check out the link to read more about the study.
162 girls were exposed to Barbie dolls, Emme Dolls (a size 16 doll,) or no dolls at all (this was the control of the experiment.) After the girls viewed the dolls, the girls took a test to assess their body image self-esteem.

The results of the assessments were very conclusive:
"Girls exposed to Barbie reported lower body esteem and greater desire for a thinner body shape than girls in the other exposure conditions."

The study further suggests that early exposure to dolls exhibiting an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image, which would contribute to an increased risk of eating disorders and weight issues.
(Dittmar, 2006)


It seems pretty clear that there are body-image issues plauging children and their self-esteem these days. It also seems pretty clear that a certain plastic doll might have something to do with these image issues too. So, Mattel, the evidence is against you, can we please stop pretending that Barbie isn't contributing to the problem?



(Dittmar, Helga et al. 2006. "Does Barbie Make Girls Want to be Thin?..." American Psychological Association, Journals Department. vol. 42-2; 283-292.)

(Skemp-Arlt, Karen et al. 2006. "Body image dissatisfaction among third, fourth, and fifth grade children." California Journal of Health Promotion. vol. 4-3; 58-67.)