Many young children, myself included, have played with and loved Barbie dolls for years. Barbie's been on the top selling toys list for decades and it doesn't look like she won't be popular for a very long time. She has been a friend and role model for many children. Yes, it's great that she's successful in love and her careers and she can be a great role model in that way. But in terms of body image, she's been destroying us. Her body shape is impossible to have! If she was life sized, which is shown to the right, she would be awkwardly tall and completely disproportionate! But in doll form, she looks like the most beautiful woman alive. If all girls see are women that portrayed as beautiftul with literally impossible looks, we are setting ourselves up for disaster. If we are told what is beautiful and then can never ever achieve it, there is going to be some sense of insufficiency.
When I saw this picture I thought to myself "But in reality, is this Barbie pictured beautiful?" I think she has a false sense of beauty. The makers have taken every positive attribute a woman can have and exaggerated them completely so that she has the smallest waist, the largest breasts, the longest legs, and so on; but it makes her unattractive ultimately! Again, it's like we're setting society up for failure by showing unattainable and untrue representations of beauty to children.
