Barbie Dolls' Adverse Effects on Girls' Body Image

Barbie Dolls’ adverse effects on girls’ body image
Name:
Institution:
Course:
Instructor:
Date:
Barbie Dolls’ adverse effects on girls’ body image
Barbie dolls are important and iconic in the American culture where women of all ages are identifed with the doll. Thus, it has become a predominant feature in American culture and society. In 1959, the song "Barbie you’re Beautiful" brought into limelight the initial Barbie doll which was 11.5 inches tall (Abrahamson, 2009). Since then, the Barbie doll has developed into an idealized icon and formed its form of popular culture in the lives of American girls and others around the world. The doll has managed to win a human like identity in the American culture as it has given a reflection of cultural concerns that tend to influence the American lives. The Barbie doll has managed to cause a major value shift and to promote a popular culture of Americanization through thinness for attractiveness ideals in the young girl’s minds. The ideal of Barbie doll not only affect the young girls, but has adverse effects on parents and women adults in America who aim at attaining a Barbie look by working out and being on diets. This paper supports the thesis that the introduction of Barbie dolls in the American market has led to adverse effects in the girl’s body image at the global level.
A History of Barbie Dolls
Barbie was created in 1959 as a toy company for young girls. Over the years, Barbie dolls have emerged as one of the world’s top-notch sellers of fashion dolls in every major global market. It registers annual global sales of $ 1.5 billion. By 1998, girls were in possession of at least eight dolls as the company managed to sell a pair of dolls per second in almost all of their outlets across the world ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Abramson", "given" : "Elise", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2009" ] ] }, "page" : "1-40", "publisher" : "Oregon State University University Honors College)", "title" : "Barbie Brains: The Effect of Barbie Dolls on Girls' Perception of Male and Female Jobs", "type" : "thesis" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=f1674ec4-5a80-439b-ad1e-f4ec64bb3bc5" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Abramson, 2009)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Abramson, 2009)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Abramson, 2009)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Abramson, 2009). The doll has been in the market for 47 years and has dominated the American society where girls aged 3-10 own up to eight Barbie dolls on average. Barbie dolls affect the social and cultural lives of the American society because its main target is the young girls ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Dittmar, Helga, Halliwell", "given" : "Emma", "non-dropping-particle" :...