You can buy a child a curvy Barbie doll, but you can’t make her like it: Young girls’ beliefs about Barbie dolls with diverse shapes and sizes

Abstract

This study utilized Mattel’s new line of Fashionista Barbie dolls to examine attitudes about body shape and size in a sample of young girls. A total of 84 girls, 3–10 years of age, were asked to assign positive or negative traits to Barbie dolls which varied in size and shape (original, tall, petite, and curvy). Participants also answered questions about their preferences for the dolls and completed measures of body dissatisfaction. Results generally demonstrated greater negative attitudes towards the curvy Barbie doll and more positive attitudes towards dolls with a thinner body size/shape (i.e., original, tall, and petite dolls). Girls identified the curvy Barbie as the doll they least wanted to play with. Additionally, girls with higher levels of body dissatisfaction demonstrated less negative attitudes towards the original doll. Overall, findings demonstrate a preference for thin bodies and aversion towards larger bodies among young girls. Further, findings suggest that the simple availability of body-diverse dolls may not be a powerful enough intervention to overcome harmful weight attitudes, and highlight the importance of continued efforts to encourage exposure to and acceptance of diverse body shapes and sizes in young children.