Barbie

Barbie a childhood toy that many girls play with when they are young. Like any other doll they are able to role play with and dress up into different clothes, but one thing is different and that's the doll itself. What seems like a harmless toy given to children can be something more than an innocent toy. It can be something can affect children psychologically at a young age. Although not seen as effecting them at the time when they first play with Barbies it grows into a problem as they get older. They see this girl with perfect features (blond hair, blue eyes, and really skinny) and can have everything she wants. She has a hot boyfriend with equal perfection to her and they have a mansion as a house and an expensive looking car. These unrealistic views on life get into children's heads and as they grow older they have this goal that they should have everything that they should ever want.

Along with that body image is something that they want to perfect as they get older. They want to be like Barbie a girl with the perfect body and hair and they want to look the same. This idea can get as far as having them get plastic surgery when they are old enough so they can look just like her. She is the representation of the perfection of a woman who everyone strives to be. From this you get anorexia, bulimia, and it may go as far as suicide if they can't get what they want and hate themselves because they cannot be like Barbie. Although people strive to be like Barbie you stop to think who wants to be beautiful without brains. I mean Barbie is being controlled by children because it doesn’t have a mind of its own. So what this saying? That beauty is everything and that everything else is secondary. That is scary thought that people would rather have everything that they can ever possibly want, but they don’t have to have the brains to do it. Barbies send out the wrong message to kids. We live in a society that perfection is the utmost important thing for a person. This is sending the wrong ideas to kids and then as they grow up teach their children the same idea when they hand them their first Barbie.

This is a vicious cycle that society gets people into. If it is not shown from Barbies at a young age then it is things that they see on TV that relate to the whole idea of perfection with celebrities being very thin and if they start to gain weight then there is this whole uproar of, oh she’s getting fat or is that a baby bump? This whole idea of having the perfect body is portrayed everywhere in magazines, TV, runways with models having to be a size 2 in order for them to even be eligible to be a model. It’s terrible to think that we have come this far and people are brainwashing children and teens to think that they are not perfect the way they are. This has become a social norm and it is hurting how people see themselves. Barbies may have been the start of this and if it isn’t well then we can see where kids may get some of their ideas from and that is from Barbie.