Here's why I bought myself a 'curvy' Barbie doll at age 25
On January 28, Mattel unveiled three new body types - curvy, tall, and petite - for the world's best-selling doll. For the first time ever, girls will own a Barbie whose proportions relatively match their own.
Barbie's head-to-toe overhaul answers fans' call for a doll that looks like them and supports more positive body images. It also marks the most radical change to the company's product line in its 57-year history - a Hail Mary pass at regaining Barbie's status as an empowered role model for girls. The good publicity could turn around Mattel's four-year retail slump.
The morning after the announcement, I got into work, logged onto my computer, and bought myself one of the new, curvy Barbies for about $18. It's something I haven't done in more than a decade, but I couldn't resist.
This is the doll I always wanted.
Over the years, my collection grew to include dozens of Barbies. I graduated from Mermaid Barbie to Wet 'n Wild Barbie, whose skimpy bikini would hardly wrap around my finger now; and from young Babysitter Skipper to My Generation Girl Barbie, who came with her own body glitter and teen magazine. My family had two big, clear plastic bins to contain them, their clothing, and tiny pink stilettos.
Growing up, my Barbie dolls already kind of looked like me. Most of them were fair-skinned with big blue eyes and yellow hair. I asked my dad if he remembers which were my favorites and he texted back, "the blonde ones."
Yes, they mostly looked like me - except in one crucial way.
Until now, Barbie's figure resembled a toothpick more closely than a human girl.
If the original Barbie were a real woman, she would stand nearly six feet and weigh 110 pounds, making her so underweight she wouldn't be able menstruate, according to research by Rehabs.com, an online tool for locating mental health treatment centers in the US. One out of every 2.4 billion women in the world have a waist as small.
To top if off, Barbie's size-three feet and six-inch ankles would force her to walk on all fours.
Now, I grew up a chubby kid. I remember dressing and undressing Barbie in my pink-carpeted room, examining her stick-figure limbs and thinking, gosh, she is so beautiful.
She fit into every dress and bathing suit without a hitch, while I dug for clothing at the back of the rack in the Limited Too and Aéropostale. Nothing jiggled on her, and I felt embarrassed I couldn't say the same about me.
Barbie's impossibly tiny body has drawn critics since the year of her inception. Parents worry she projects unrealistic expectations on their children, and they might be right. A 2006 study published in the journal Developmental Psychology suggests that girls exposed to Barbie at a young age stressed over their weight more than girls who played with other dolls.
Mattel has made incremental changes over the years to reboot Barbie. In 1998, her hips widened and her bust shrunk in an attempt to reflect real women. (That adjustment was far less noticeable than this week's update.)
Last year, the company launched a more ethnically diverse line of dolls, featuring new skin tones, facial structures, hair styles, and eye colors. Plus, Barbie's new articulated ankles allowed her to rock a pair of flats just as well as heels for the first time.
As someone who has struggled with her weight her entire life, I could cry just thinking about Barbie's latest makeover. It's a big deal.
Curvy, tall, petite, and original Barbies send a message that there's no one-size-fits-all standard of beauty. The dolls are equally stunning and fashion-forward, and their differences make them even more special.
My hope is that girls who pick up the Barbie who most resemble them, as I once did, will see they're perfect the way they are. Maybe they will feel less alienated by the hyper-sexualized images of women they see on TV and in magazines. With luck, those girls will play with dolls who don't look like them, too, and grow more inclusive of other shapes and sizes.
The curvy, blonde Barbie doll I bought yesterday, however, will sit buried in my closet for at least 10 years. The vibrancy of her belted summer dress will fade, and her plastic blue eyes will gather dust.
She's something I want to share with my future daughter. This doll is a reminder - the world is still catching up with our broader ideals of beauty. It won't happen overnight.
Barbie is a shining, pink-lipped symbol of good things to come.
