Scary stuff: Young girls and body image

Hello, dear readers!

The purpose of this post is to raise awareness of how early in life a child’s (especially girl’s) body image starts to be influenced by outside factors such as toys and the media. A while ago, I wrote an article critique as part of my studies, and it was a real eye-opener for myself and the class I presented it to. The research study in question was conducted with very young girls because most previous research of body image development focussed on children and adolescents older than eight. Please note that the study used participants from a mostly white American middle-class population, and that the results may therefore not apply equally to girls with different socio-cultural backgrounds. The title of the article was

“Does Barbie Make Girls Want to Be Thin? The Effect of Experimental Exposure to Images of Dolls on the Body Image of 5- to 8-Year-Old Girls” (Dittmar, Halliwell & Ive, 2006).

In their study, the researchers compared the reported body image and body shape dissatisfaction of 162 girls from three age groups (grade 1, 2 and 3), after showing them one of three versions of a specially made-up picture book. All three versions of the book contained the same storyline, but one version featured Barbie dolls, one version featured Emme dolls, and the third version was neutral without visible people in it. Apart from having a more average body shape, Emme dolls look quite similar to Barbie dolls who’s frame is so thin it would be quite impossible to achieve for any normal woman.

I will not go into too much detail about every statistically obtained result here, but the bottom line was clear: even the youngest girls in the Barbie group reported a more negative body image and more body shape dissatisfaction than those in the Emme and neutral groups. The direct effect was largest in the grade 2 girls and seemed to diminish in the grade 3 girls, but it definitely was significant already in the grade 1 girls who were between 5 1/2 and 6 1/2 years old.

Based on their findings, the researchers suggest that internalization of the thin-ideal may start earlier than previously thought. I might add that general daily exposure to the media, which is virtually unavoidable these days, will have an even greater effect than playing with the wrong dolls. In any case, the study discribed above was only preliminary, and careful longitudinal research is needed to shed more light on the dangers of early exposure to distorted or unrealistic body ideals. Plus, toy designers and advertisers should stop, forget about the money for a moment, and take a long hard look at research of this kind.

Until then, I urge all mothers of young girls out there to make an extra effort to teach their daughters about human anatomy and tell them that you have no idea how the Barbie creators could have gotten it so terribly wrong. It might be worth mentioning that if a girl or a woman looked like Barbie, she would be seriously ill. At this point in time, it is unrealistic to try and suggest that people stop buying Barbie dolls, because the darn things have been around for more than half a century and, according to Rogers (1999), only one percent of US girls do not own one. However, I strongly believe that the right guidance from a trusted role model will help avoid negative outcomes in most cases.

Please leave comments if you have anything to add or don’t agree!

References

Dittmar, H., Halliwell, E., & Ive, S. (2006). Does Barbie make girls want to be thin? The effect of experimental exposure to images of dolls on the body image of 5- to 8-year-old girls. Developmental Psychology, 42/2, 283-292.

Rogers, A. (1999). Barbie Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.