In recent years Barbie has been criticized for having unrealistic body portions. People have argued that this representation could be contributing to pre-teens and adolescents suffering with self-confidence issues and anorexica. Fashion doll Barbie was first manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel who launched the doll at the American International toy fair in March 1959. Since then, a new modern version of ‘Barbie’ has been developed by Nickolay Lamm in 2014 conceiving an average size women alternative to Mattel’s Barbie. But is this doll any better?The original Barbie is known for her glamorous appearance with a tiny waist, untouched hair and her beanpole figure appearing to weigh 110lbs, 35 lbs under the healthy weight for her height 5’9 if she was in a human form – making her anorexic. This created “Barbie syndrome”, which particularly affects young people. This is when a person begins to desire to have a physical appearance and lifestyle of representative, Barbie doll. In recent years, a new modern Barbie was created fitting the criteria of an average sized woman, ‘Lammily’.
Lammily is the first fashion doll that holds healthy aspects relating to a typical 19 year old women’s body shape with a 31” waist (UK Size 12) with a height of 5’4 inches, in contrast with the Barbie doll’s 18” waist. The likelihood of having Barbie’s iconic body type is one in 100,000 chances near enough, unachievable. This Lammily doll could be a good product as it does provide children with an alternative perception of ideal beauty within the human race.
Lammily-vs-Barbie
However, the Lammily doll that supposedly considers “the average sized women’s body shape” only covers the Western World. This is problematic, as the manufactures are still not considering the average sized body shape of women from all areas of the world where the average sized could be something entirely different to these Westernised modern dolls that are being represented today. Although these doll alternations are taking a step into the right direction, are they still too Westernised for a doll sold worldwide?