Barbie Doll Syndrome

The drive, often of vulnerable adolescent girls, to attain impossible standards of beauty, projected by toys — e.g. Mattel’s Barbie Doll — and the media, resulting in failure and frustration, issues related to body image, eating disorders, and self-image.

If Barbie was a real woman, she would be 168 cm and weigh 45 kilogram. Her body fat percentage would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate. In the real world, she would be anorexic. In the book “Ken and Barbie at Life Size,” author Kevin Norton states that only about one in 100,000 women actually match the Barbie body image.
Thus, it is not only psychologically unhealthy to try to imitate your dolls, but also physically unhealthy. The Barbie Doll Syndrome may also have some aspects in common with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, an often pervasive and intrusive disorder that involves the belief that one's own appearance is unusually defective and is worthy of being hidden or fixed.

More help can be found here: Barto, Salkeld: Challenging the Barbie Doll Syndrome: A Group Design for Working with Adolescent Girls – 2001

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