By Christina Burke
Managing Editor
Although my five-year-old self did not have much sense of self worth at the time of my Barbie-playing days, I knew one thing: Barbie was pretty, and I wanted to be pretty like Barbie when I grew up.
What I failed to realize was that looking like Barbie is physically impossible.
A study done by Adweek magazine shows the abnormal proportions that make up a Barbie doll compared to the average American woman. If Barbie were a real woman, her 16 inch waist would be a dramatic 18 inches smaller than the average American woman’s. She would also have to crawl on all fours to maneuver herself from place to place because her six inch ankles and child-sized feet would not be able to support the weight of her body.
There is no denying that girls are held to specific, and even harsh, standards of beauty and growing up with icons such as Barbie dolls does not make the struggle with self-confidence any easier. What girls fail to realize is that it is perfectly OK not to have a “barbie body.”
Research artist Nickolay Lamm chose to defend this statement through one of his recent projects. Lamm constructed a new 3D model of which is referred to as, “Average Barbie” using measurements of the average American woman from the Center for Disease Control.
At first glance, I was almost shocked that the someone proposed an idea such as an realistically proportioned doll. The longer I gazed at Average Barbie, the more began to appreciate the refreshing look of this new model. With a shorter stature and thicker physique, Lamm’s Average Barbie is without a doubt a better representation of a real woman. And she is still beautiful.
The purpose of Lamm’s project was to show his audience that average is beautiful, a point he proved successfully through his model. Compared side-by-side, Lamm’s doll makes the features on Mattel’s Barbie look ridiculously abnormal to where I cannot even believe I ever wanted to look like that.
Kudos to Lamm for creating such an example of why girls should not worry about the way they look compared to what they think is beautiful. Average Barbie is a lesson to all of us that there is beauty in every size and shape and that women should not be held to unrealistic expectations.
For the sake of girls’ self esteem, I hope that Lamm pursues putting the doll on the market. It would be nice to see a future built on the realistic expectations of Average Barbie.
