Essay on Downfall of Female Body Image: Media’s Influence

What was that one doll every little girl just had to have growing up? What doll made little girls obsess with perfection? What doll set the unrealistic standards for girls starting at ages three or four? Barbie is a children’s toy that was first introduced to the market in 1959. Barbie was the perfect role model for all girls. She was perfectly skinny, had a perfect boyfriend and family, perfect hair, perfect house, perfect everything, but her existence is completely ironic. Although Mattel, creator of Barbie, attempts to make Barbie absolute perfection, all her imperfect buyers are wondering why they cannot look like the beautiful doll. She is responsible for the diminishing young girls’ self-confidence. Lisa Belkin believes girls in today’s society cannot comprehend what true beauty is because they were so entranced with the idea of Barbie in her online article “Banning Barbie.” Barbie should be pulled off the shelves immediately. Barbie’s looks, actions, and lust for materialistic objects are the blame for the degeneration of assurance in young girls and women.

Since its inception at the American International Toy Fair in New York, the Barbie doll has drastically altered the doll market. With the abundant amount of Barbie dolls on Earth, it is clear that they have also affected society and individuals’ body images. The mental image of one’s body can greatly influence the actions and habits of a person, and with most young girls surrounding themselves with the flawless doll, they are subconsciously comparing their own body to Barbie. The change in body image that young girls experience while playing with Barbie has left many experts skeptical that a doll like Barbie should exist. I agree with the skeptics when they state that playing with Barbie’s negatively affects young girls, and fully support a ban of the famous figurine.

Many believe that Barbie has been the cause for body image issues for young children and has affected people well into adulthood, some have gone on to suggest that the whole company is the bane of society and should be shut down. However, perceptions of Barbie didn’t start that way and I want to explore what caused this large shift in views. For such a seemingly insignificant toy to gain such strong

The influence of the media on all aspect of society has spread like wildfire especially in the United States. One specific influence by the media is body image, large number of young women and girls look up to people in the media and are influenced by the way they look. Now days you’re appraised on your attractiveness, the way you look, the way you dress, and especially how thin you are. The media’s representation of body image has contributed to the social trend of an unhealthy lifestyle. Women and young girls today are fixated on trying modify the way they look to achieve the perfect body image set by the standards of society. Female’s worry about the way they look starting at young ages from the unhealthy image of the Barbie doll to the

Images of female bodies are everywhere. Women, and their bodies, sell everything from food to cars. Women's magazines are full of articles urging women to fit a certain mold. While standing in a grocery store line you can see all different magazines promoting fashion, weight loss, and the latest diet. Although the magazines differ, they all seemingly convey the same idea: if you have the perfect body image you can have it all…the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career. The media, whether TV, print, or Internet advertising, seems to play a huge role in influencing women of all ages; from adolescence and teens, to women in their twenties and thirties, as well as

(Heubeck 2006) For many young people, especially girls, the ideal continues to chase them as they grow into young women. Young girls begin to internalize the stereotypes and judge themselves by media’s impossible standards. The power that the media holds in impacting the lives of young girls is detrimental and eventually affects their body image, their satisfaction of their own body, and portrayal of their body as an object.

Over the years a debate over who is to blame over the decline in how girls perceive themselves has arisen. With Photoshop being the societal norm concerning the media, it has become difficult for many to understand where the line between real and near impossible standards lies. Youths see an image edited to “perfection” and strive to reach the standards that they imagine due to the images displayed on magazines, television and social media. From Disney to magazines like Vogue the mass media bombards audiences with fake beauty that they, as normal people, will never be able to achieve. The mass media is responsible for causing the rise in the number of people with a poor body image, eating disorders, and cosmetic surgeries.

Furthermore, media surrounds teenage girls in today’s culture. It is impossible to escape the sight of media. The media’s constant idealistic beauty is ever present to a vast amount of self-conscious girls. This image of beauty causes girls to have low self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar). Media defining this perfect body image causes many adolescent girls to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and become depressed. “Viewing ultra-thin or average-size models led to decreases in both body satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescent girls aged eleven to sixteen, with changes in self-esteem fully mediated by changes in body satisfaction” (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar).

From the time they are born, girls are influenced by society as to who they should be, how they should look, and how they should act. Americans believe that women should be to a certain standard; pretty, feminine, and especially, thin. The pressures derive from family, media, and friends. Marge Piercy’s poem, “Barbie Doll” depicts a girl who was never recognized for her character and spent her life trying to be accepted for who she was, rather than how she looked.

“My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices,” Ruth says. (Inc, n.d) Ruth and Elliot Handler are the founders of Mattel creation and in 1959 the world was given the “Barbie” doll. (Inc, n.d.) The Barbie doll was introduced to a small toy fair costing $3. The Barbie doll was the first doll to be sold that doesn’t look, “like a baby” but more like a woman. The Barbie doll is an iconic doll available for anyone, anywhere. After further research, the Barbie doll has influenced body image and society that there is a “right way to look” to fit in consists of blonde hair, blue eyes, 5’8 or taller, long legs, small waist, big boobs and butt. This encourages women to think what they have is not good enough and they need to change it to look the best or the “norm.” The influences the Barbie doll has had on body image are the “unrealistic Barbie,” and increasing eating disorder percentages.

Starting young, adolescent girls around the world are becoming self-conscious due to society’s influence upon what they should and shouldn’t look like. Many argue that The Barbie Doll plays a key influence in what young girls assume their bodies should look like. However, some will argue that the Barbie Doll toy is a good role model for young children, especially girls, because of her career choices, how she’s depicted in her movies, and her overall personality.

Perfect, gorgeous, attractive and dazzling: Barbie has continued to dominate global toy sales for the past five decades – she is the purest paragon. However, contrary to widespread belief, Barbie may be the worst thing to have ever damned society, along with its ever-expanding population. Sensible adults may understand that Barbie’s physique is unattainable, as well as being an unrealistic depiction of a woman’s body, but is Barbie completely harmless to young girls? Or are her effects far more incessant, and deep-rooted, than society wishes to believe? Since 1959, Barbie has ‘supposedly’ brought immense joy to young girls across the planet via her delectable career paths, and fashion taste. Yet coming through the beginning of the 21st Century, Barbie has come under fire by the public, and by leading experts on whether her unrealistically proportioned body is truly healthy for a child to interact with. Barbie is the lingering, systematic sexism of the 1950s, still crawling in our gutters – so, is it time for some modernisation, or should this psychologically damaging doll be abandoned forever?

This power has allowed the creation of new standards for women who are expected to be in perfect in every way and do everything to reach the established standards, even if it means putting their life at risk in order to meet the “ideal” body or face. Being exposed to these models flaunting their perfect bodies millions of women suffer from insecurities and low self-esteem. In the article Reconstructing the Ideal Body Image in Teen Fashion Magazines the writers Malachowski and Myers state that “Magazines are particularly influential because they target an audience in which disordered eating is most common, and display models that are thinner than 98% of American women” (2). Studies show that the most affected by these ideals are girls and teenagers, which is sad because they only care about looking like models in orders to be considered beautiful or just to be part of certain group. In the article No model for girls Fiona Bawdon states that “In a study of 3,200 young women carried out in February this year by Girlguiding UK, over half of 16- to 25-year-olds said the media showed in magazines or fashion advertisements made them feel that "being pretty and thin" was the "most important thing". This proves how the media and The Fashion Industry guide and shape the concept that society has about beauty

Everyone wants to have an ideal “fit” and “sexy” body type. A lot of girls wanted to be this “barbie” kind of doll that most girls have. An article by Christine Williams stated that “Today sociologists and media scholars argue that to understand the doll and its impact, it is necessary to examine Barbie play in context. Evidently children use the doll the same way that adults use popular culture: to fantasize, to imagine alternative worlds and alternative lives, to project their needs and desires, and to define and refine their sexual identities” (Williams). Speaker 2: Barbie dolls were certainly a big hit a long time ago because their skinny appearance and glamour.

Today I’m going to talk about the Media and a women’s body image, and how the media could be harming you and your children. Have you ever read a magazine or watched TV and say wow I wish I look like her? The media sets out tons of images and videos of a way an average woman should look like when in reality what the media is showing is unrealistic goal to achieve. Whit the media showing off only one body image or what they would say “perfect,” body image they can cause serious problems mentally and physically in a women’s mind and body.