Is marketing a "Plus Size Barbie" a "good" thing?

[BDBoop]

"Women and body image" begin when the person is a child. It is up to the parents to develop a healthy sense of self, self esteem and accurate and well thought out perspective regarding the world and not leave it up to the people who manufacture and market the Barbie doll.

Aaaaaand you had to attack me to make that point?

Attack? I made an assessment, just like you did....madam...

Gotcha. Source considered.

Have a good day, sir.

 

[Connery]

Aaaaaand you had to attack me to make that point?

Attack? I made an assessment, just like you did....madam...

Gotcha. Source considered.

Have a good day, sir.

You too.

You see this problem, like most problems of this nature, begin at home when the person is a child. That poor perspective is carried into adulthood and remains with that person until they chnage it. If there is no parent who will take the responsibility to guide and nurture the child then there will complications regarding that issue.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Once more our sages are proven right:

The Second Commandment:

4. You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth.
5. You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them, for I, the [L-rd], your [G-d], am a zealous [G-d], Who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me,
- Exodus 20

When idols get worshipped, as anyone emmulating a doll is doing, bad things happen.

 

[martybegan]

Did you read the whole article, or just the C&P.

I post at work in the background, and I try not to open anything linked if I can help it.

Ill review when I get home, but from my engineering background, when the summary doesnt post numbers, they usually are dont back up the summary as well as they could.

My engineering background is also why I dont trust made up concepts such as "body esteem scores."

Do you believe eating disorders exist?

Eating disorders exist, I have known anorexics and bulemics. I also have issues with my own weight, as I tend to overeat when agitated or upset. I know plenty of people on the opposite end of the spectrum, who are overweight and eat to compensate for something.

 

[BDBoop]

Yup! Same. But I certainly don't blame my parents.

 

[martybegan]

Yup! Same. But I certainly don't blame my parents.

Blame is a whole other thread. To me when someone is "fucked up" regardless of the actual "fucked-up-ed-ness" a myriad of causes is at the root.

With me for example, I had serious women issues growing up and in my early adulthood, i.e. i was terrified of them. Maybe this is ingrained in me as a nerdy star trek/RPG playing guy, or maybe it was because my mother was a domineering nutjob who used to yell at me for an hour if I got below a 90% on a test in grade school. (to be fair, she's on medication now, and much better).

So maybe she's part of the cause, maybe she's not, but in the end It took myself to get past it and now I've had a girlfriend for almost a year, and will likely be married before 2015 ends.

I tried to get past blame, and into understanding, and it took the death of an Aunt who was single, overweight, and miserable to shock me into changing my ways.

 

[BDBoop]

You're a good egg, Mister Marty.

 

[martybegan]

You're a good egg, Mister Marty.

Thanks.

To clarify on the debate in general, is it possible that some girls are impacted in some way by the image given by barbie dolls? Of course. human mental interaction is something we are only starting to understand in a non emprical way. Does the evidence for this lean towards a need to force toy companies to make dolls more anatomically correct? No, No, 100 times no. Should people who think more positive dolls need to be out there market thier dolls, and proclaim thier beleifs that thier dolls are superior? Of course they can, and they should.

To me however, a person pre-disposed to negative impact from dolls is probably pre-disposed to negative impact from alot of other things, and the only way to protect them would be to encase them in a bubble, which of course has its own negative impacts on a person's development.

 

[Connery]

Blame is an over simplification of the issue regarding the dolls it is more responsibility and fully understating, if possible, the impact of what those of us who are parents are exposing our children to and explaining the significance therein.

 

[Esmeralda]

Blame is an over simplification of the issue regarding the dolls it is more responsibility and fully understating, if possible, the impact of what those of us who are parents are exposing our children to and explaining the significance therein.

Whether we like it or not, most parents are not able to raise children who aren't to some degree influenced by peer pressure, the media, essentially the society in which they live. Young women, even girls, are bombarded with a female image that for most women is not attainable, one that is not realistic. Contrary to GI Joe, the Barbie doll comes with a huge assortment of outfits and other items meant to create the ideal of feminine beauty. Her very slim, and impossibly top heavy body are something girls and young women are encouraged to emulate, directly and indirectly.

In any case, I don't think it is a good idea to market an obese Barbi. I think fat acceptance is just as bad as promoting the idea that Barbi is physically anything like a normal or average woman. Being over weight is not defined in the same way by all 'professionals' across the planet, but I think we all have a reasonable idea of what is healthy and reasonably fit. That is what should be promoted, not an extremely slender body and not an obese body. Something reasonable. Fat acceptance is not healthy, but neither is anorexia.

 

[April]

Plus-sized Barbie ignites volcanic debate on obesity, body image and anorexia | Examiner.com

So, is marketing a "plus size Barbie" a good idea?

Yes, it is more realistic and representative of the adult female anatomy, than the original. Since Barbies will be around forever, it seems, they should reflect the body of a more average person, for better or for worse and in my opinion.

IMO neither one of those dolls represents a typical or realistic idea of what the female body looks like. I think it would make more sense to get rid of the original Barbie body but not create one who is obese. Create one who represents what is realistic for a healthy, normally shaped female. Something somewhere between to these two images.

I absolutely agree with you. Neither Barbie is a healthy representation of the 'average' female body...

 

[Iceman]

If it is a "good thing", it will be produced and marketed.

However, I don't think most people want a fat doll since it doesn't exist yet.

Same thing with "plus sized models", not that popular, if it increased profits, companies would do it.

However, people don't idealize obesity, generally, they idealize thin women, and in shape men. Even if they are fat themselves.

 

[Two Thumbs]

Plus-sized Barbie ignites volcanic debate on obesity, body image and anorexia | Examiner.com

So, is marketing a "plus size Barbie" a good idea?

Wow, I can see the apocolisp from my window

The double chin clinches it for me, I mean what child wouldn't want


man o man, this is some funny shit.


Next years Xmas ideas;

A-cup Barbie
Goth Barbie
Crack ho Barbie
Inked up Barbie
and of course
Cutting Barbie


we just need some catchie names

 

[Iceman]

From the previous link.

The Barbie Body Image and Eating Disorders

The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness reports that 70 million people worldwide suffer from eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. About 90 percent of those with eating disorders are young women between the ages of 12 and 25. Remember, these young women likely played with Barbie dolls, multiple Barbie dolls, shortly before developing their disorders.

An unrealistic idea about the way we should look or what we should weigh is not the only thing that causes eating disorders and in fact, eating disorders are complex conditions that probably have numerous contributing factors. Still, we know that the toys children play with influence their later behavior.

One study found more than half of women ages 18 to 25 would prefer to be run over by a truck than to be overweight. Even if they have not been diagnosed with eating disorders, these women clearly do not have healthy body images.

Eating disorders

#whitegirlproblems

right on the money here:

"I’ve learned several lessons from the massive public response to my article. I didn’t write it as a publicity stunt, to drive traffic, or to elicit a reaction (i.e., “troll”)—as many people have speculated. I also didn’t do it as a social experiment, though it’s inadvertently become exactly that. Among the many conclusions I can’t help but draw is that middle-class white women are the most protected and privileged group in our society. We’ve known this, to an extent, when we’re told things like American white women are the principle beneficiaries of affirmative action, or when we see rifts in the women’s movement open along racial lines. This minor event underscored this fact on another level. While I’m repeatedly told that eating disorders are afflictions that strike women of all races and social classes, the overwhelming majority of responses—and the most prominent and spirited ones—have come from precisely that demographic.

Not only do middle-class white women enjoy the luxury of having something so innocuous as a 600-word Internet post written by some stranger be “the worst thing that’s happened to them,” they have national organizations, major publications like your own, and droves of obsequious male supporters climbing over each other to come to their defense. What these women don’t realize is that the discomfort that they’re experiencing— of having their plight and challenges “trivialized” or “dismissed”—is how other demographics feel every day. But, in this case, these women and their supporters feel perfectly justified and, more importantly, enfranchised to lash out in violent (and probably illegal) threats of death and mutilation against me and my colleagues who are merely, and inadvertently, pointing out this uncomfortable truth. Most other demographics, unfortunately, don’t have a national support network ready to come to their aid when someone so much as writes something that hurts their feelings, but they have every ability to simply ignore."

A Year Of Outrage

 

[Two Thumbs]

Yes, it is more realistic and representative of the adult female anatomy, than the original. Since Barbies will be around forever, it seems, they should reflect the body of a more average person, for better or for worse and in my opinion.

IMO neither one of those dolls represents a typical or realistic idea of what the female body looks like. I think it would make more sense to get rid of the original Barbie body but not create one who is obese. Create one who represents what is realistic for a healthy, normally shaped female. Something somewhere between to these two images.

I absolutely agree with you. Neither Barbie is a healthy representation of the 'average' female body...

Ironic considering your avi dontcha think?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Is The Dean plus size stupid?

The mark of someone stupid is when they say things they can't prove. Obviously, that's not me.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

[Two Thumbs]

 

[April]

IMO neither one of those dolls represents a typical or realistic idea of what the female body looks like. I think it would make more sense to get rid of the original Barbie body but not create one who is obese. Create one who represents what is realistic for a healthy, normally shaped female. Something somewhere between to these two images.

I absolutely agree with you. Neither Barbie is a healthy representation of the 'average' female body...

Ironic considering your avi dontcha think?

My avie is not of a stick thin barbie looking type...none of my avies even the ones of myself are stick thin or obese (most pinup models are required to have some meat on their bones babe)...

 

[Iceman]

Has anyone ever thought that thin dolls aren't the problem, but overweight and obese people are?

Food for thought...

 

[NLT]

the fat barbie would be better in the sack. The skinny barbie would be all bony points and you know her tits are fake with an ass that tiny.