The Not-So-Graceful Aging of Barbie

Happy 50th Birthday, Barbie! As a tribute, we here at OnePinky thought we’d issue a photo of you without the plastic (double plastic?) surgery, the induced vomiting, the airbrushed photos, and your team of makeup artists. In short, since we are big on authenticity here, the REAL YOU!

Easy on the bon bons, Barb!

If Barbie were a real woman, she would be five foot nine, and her measurements would be 36-18-33. (The average American woman’s measurements are 40-34-43.) She wouldn’t even have enough body fat to have a menstrual cycle—I guess they didn’t think about that when they made the Mommy-to-Be Barbie!

“One of my heroes is Barbie. She may not do anything, but she always looks great doing it.” –Paris Hilton

The probability of getting a body like Barbie’s? 1 in 100,000. And those who might actually manage to do so would put their health at serious risk. With backs too weak to stand up straight and properly support their torsos, and only enough room within their bodies to hold half a liver and a few inches of colon, these women would die of malnutrition.

Bodies like that should be pitied, not envied.

“You know what children do with Barbie dolls. It’s a bit scary, actually.” –Cate Blanchett

Barbie is a legitimate concern when it comes to children—especially young girls. Studies have linked her to causing eating disorders, and girls between the ages of 5 and 7 who viewed photos of Barbie report less self-esteem and a greater desire to be thin that girls who did not.

“I think they should have a Barbie with a buzz cut.” –Ellen DeGeneres

OnePinky member Sara recently told me that she gave her Barbies buzz cuts as a kid! “I cut off their hair, dyed it with kool-aid… I threw them in trees. Man, I was mean to my Barbies! I even wrote stories about them where they always lost in apocalyptic battles.”

“There were times when I hated my nose. But you grow up and you start to recognize that maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that you weren’t born Barbie.” –Anjelica Huston

However, I must say a few things personally, when I was a little girl, my Barbie play was some of the happiest memories of my childhood. I was swept away in the fantasy of what could be while I was so miserable. So as horrible as the message is for many young girls and women, I actually treasure my Barbie moments as a kid playing with Missy, Ann and Jeannie, my best childhood friends.

Do you have a Barbie story to share?

Do you love Mattel’s plastic sweetheart?

Hate her?

Did you ever want to BE her?

Do your kids have Barbie dolls?

Share your answers in today’s comments please. We need them.

And one more thing from me. While it is true that Barbie has sent the wrong message out to many, we live with these statistics looming in the background. (And as funny as the photo is, on some level, it is not funny at all.)

We have work to do on many levels.

An astounding two-thirds of American adults, including 65 million women are overweight or obese – a rise of 10 percent in just a decade. If we keep up this fat epidemic, according to a new study, all adults in the US (yes that is everyone!) will be overweight or obese in 40 years. OnePinky.com will change these statistics if we spread the word and get more women involved.

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