Barbie’s warped world: As a study finds the doll twists girls’ perceptions, here’s how our writers would look with her proportions

Super-slim dolls like Barbie can impact the body image of girls, a Durham University study suggests. 

Girls aged five to nine played with two ultra-thin dolls, including Barbie, and two dolls of a more realistic weight. 

The ultra-thin dolls reduced the girls’ ideal body size, researchers found. 

To show the difference between Barbie’s figure and that of real women, we digitally altered five writers’ bodies to match Barbie’s proportions. 

Each writer then gave their verdict on their new figure and if dolls really do influence body image. 

I’m living proof that a toy can be toxic to young girls  

By Liz Jones

There I was deludedly thinking I was thin, with Meghan Markle’s calves and Audrey Hepburn’s waist. I’m a size 8, after all. I barely eat. I run and walk every single day (Journalist Liz Jones at her home in Richmond, North Yorkshire)

Seeing myself morphed into Barbie, it’s clear I’m simply not trying hard enough. I need to be tortured on a medieval rack and stretched

Of course, a toy can be toxic. I’m living proof. I’ve just looked at this doctored photo of myself for a few seconds and I feel sick. I’d planned a sandwich for lunch, but that’s off, obviously. And I’m a grown woman.

There I was deludedly thinking I was thin, with Meghan Markle’s calves and Audrey Hepburn’s waist. I’m a size 8, after all. I barely eat. I run and walk every single day.

But now, seeing myself morphed into Barbie, it’s clear I’m simply not trying hard enough. I need to be tortured on a medieval rack and stretched. This is what it’s like to be front row at a fashion show, all over again. You think you’re fine until you find yourself filing out behind Karlie Kloss. Suddenly, you’re impossibly old, badly dressed and horribly, disgustingly obese.

No wonder then that this new study reveals that girls only need to play with Barbie once to feel less happy about their bodies.

As a child, I never had a Barbie: perhaps my parents disapproved, or she was too expensive. Instead, aged six or seven, I begged for the British version, Sindy. She too had blonde hair, a big head and saucer eyes, but she was flat-chested. To me she was more wholesome, less sexual, not quite as relentlessly sunny.

I have memories of lifting her carefully out of her cellophane box on Christmas Day. She came with the outfit my mum had chosen, as I was pony mad: fawn jodhpurs, a gingham blouse, tiny rubber riding boots, and a black velvet riding hat that would never go on, as her head was too big.

I remember undressing her: how smooth her body felt, how flawless. I wanted to be Sindy for ever. I never wanted to grow pubic hair or breasts.

It’s telling that I became anorexic aged 11, and had a breast reduction aged 29, both of which prove that aged five, six, seven, your future is already set in stone.

Aged 62 now, my body is smooth, hairless. I own a pony, and spend every day in fawn jodhpurs and a black velvet cap…

My daughter ran away screaming!

By Sarah Vine

I had a feeling I might quite like Barbie me. After all, I’ve spent the majority of my life hating my shape; surely Barbie me would be the me of my dreams?

Perhaps it’s the fact that my proportions vary so wildly from the ones we are used to seeing in magazines that make Barbie me look so weird

I had a feeling I might quite like Barbie me. After all, I’ve spent the majority of my life hating my shape; surely Barbie me would be the me of my dreams?

Instead, ew. What a freaky-looking creature she is. There’s no way that spindly neck could hold up that bonce. Where on earth does she keep her internal organs? And how does she eat? That jaw is hardly fit for purpose. That said, I am envious of her calves. I’ve always wanted slim calves. Mine are like a rugby fullback’s.

Perhaps it’s the fact that my proportions vary so wildly from the ones we are used to seeing in magazines that make Barbie me look so weird. Maybe if you Barbified supermodels Kate Moss or Rosie Huntington- Whiteley, you wouldn’t notice much difference. But on me, an ordinary-shaped woman, the effect is quite scary.

I certainly wouldn’t want to give Barbie Sarah to any child I know. Imagine having that thing sitting at the end of your bed: it would give you nightmares for weeks. I showed it to my daughter, who is 17, and she ran screaming from the room. She also said ‘you looked better originally’, which is the nicest thing she’s said to me for years.

If Barbie is a bad influence, why are so many teens obese?

 By Amanda Platell

I matured into a normal-shaped, normal-weight woman not obsessed with my body image

While laughing at my morphed middle-aged Barbie, I did wince at my today picture. Where the hell did my waist go? I blame industrial quantities of rose in lockdown!

Research by revered body image experts claim there’s now such a thing as Barbie Syndrome, which places girls who play with the dolls in danger of developing bad body-image issues, which can lead to dangerous eating disorders and low self-esteem.

That’s a lot to place on the slender shoulders of my own adored childhood toy.

Who among us can forget the moment we ripped open the Christmas wrapping to reveal that iconic, exquisite form?

My Barbie had lustrously wavy brunette hair, torpedo breasts, a teeny waist and the long slender legs I’d hoped I’d inherit from my dad, but sadly didn’t.

She was dressed in a strapless, red chiffon, floor-length evening gown that sparkled in the sunshine. She was divine.

As I gazed upon her beauty, my unruly childhood curls were restrained in plaits. I hadn’t even progressed to my training bra and the most glamorous dress I owned was one made by my mum on my grandma’s old foot-pedalled Singer sewing machine.

It reached modestly to the knee, white with pink dots and a huge fuchsia ribbon.

But I didn’t long for my doll’s body, I dreamed of the day I’d be able to wear her grown-up frocks.

I never once envied those huge breasts. As a tomboy I thought they’d get in the way when playing football or climbing trees.

As for enticing me into a world of dangerous fantasy, I much preferred playing with my brother’s Action Man. Yet that didn’t make me hanker for a man’s muscles or end up with me wanting to kill people with his rifles.

Barbie’s figure had not one polka dot’s influence on my burgeoning pre-teenager’s body image, something we didn’t even know about back then in the Sixties.

I matured into a normal-shaped, normal-weight woman not obsessed with my body image.

And if the Barbie Syndrome is truly damaging girls and turning them into skinny minnies, why are almost half of our teenagers either overweight or obese by the time they reach puberty?

While laughing at my morphed middle-aged Barbie, I did wince at my today picture. Where the hell did my waist go? I blame industrial quantities of rose in lockdown!

In a world of Botox, dolls aren’t the problem

By Kathryn Knight

Connie, my seven-year-old daughter, has made me think about the way women compare themselves with others

In a world of bum and boob implants, Botox and fillers — fuelled by images posted by real women — Barbie’s proportions seem to be the least of our problems

Connie, my seven-year-old daughter, has made me think about the way women compare themselves with others. I’ve succumbed to that myself, despite being a size 10 for most of my adult life.

I try very hard not to let Connie know, because there are already too many pernicious influences in the world, which mean that my daughter has already started to ask questions about her figure. Where these questions come from I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s because she is playing with dolls.

It’s against that backdrop that I just can’t get worked up about Barbie and her ludicrous proportions. I look at my Barbified neck and twiglet legs and more than anything I look ridiculous.

I’m pleased that Connie has no interest in Barbie, but I also know that thornier issues await us in the future. 

In a world of bum and boob implants, Botox and fillers — fuelled by images posted by real women — Barbie’s proportions seem to be the least of our problems. She, at least, is not real.

This is why I never gave Barbies to my children

By Tanith Carey

As girls are already bombarded with messages about how they should look, why would you buy your child a Barbie?

If Barbie were scaled up to the size of an average woman like me, her waist would be 20 in, when mine is 32in. But this is not the sort of hourglass I would ever want

Barbie has made some progress since the Sixties, when she came with a diet book whose only advice was ‘Don’t Eat’. But as these pictures show, she hasn’t come nearly far enough.

If Barbie were scaled up to the size of an average woman like me, her waist would be 20 in, when mine is 32in. But this is not the sort of hourglass I would ever want. My whole body now looks stick-like except for a ridiculously pneumatic torso. No wonder girls find these dolls so confusing.

As a parenting author, I’ve often heard mums protest: ‘She’s just a toy.’ But Barbie is more than that.

She gives little girls who are still working out their place in the world unrealistic messages about how women should look.

While manufacturer Mattel may now have produced other versions in different shapes and ethnicities, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Barbie remains their icon. This is the reason why I never bought my daughters Barbies. I was already raising them in a world where half of three to six-year-old girls said they worried about being fat, according to the British Journal Of Psychology.

As girls are already bombarded with messages about how they should look, why would you buy your child a Barbie?

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