Does This Convertible Make My Butt Look Big?

Sociologists are finding evidence that specific children’s toys may be hazardous to future generations. Children, who presently enjoy these psychologically harmful toys, could be facing major social and emotional problems in the future.  These psychological issues are avoidable, so long as we prevent the future generation from obtaining these plastic breeding grounds of self-loathing and hatred.  One of the most powerful of these threatening toys was introduced to America in 1959.
Andy Warhol painted a portrait of her. She has appeared in several films, including “Toy Story”.  She has been to over 150 countries. She owns over forty pets and several pink convertibles and jeeps. She has been a pilot, a flight attendant, an astronaut, a doctor, and a racecar driver.  She is almost 50 years old, arguably flawless, and is the envy of nearly all women in the United States. Sold three times every second, the success of the incredible Barbara Millicent Roberts, better known as Barbie, has become a phenomenon to the entire manufacturing and marketing industry.
However, as she is a financial blessing to a company like Mattel, Barbie is also a threat to the social and the emotional health of young girls across America.  As stated in Kamy Cunningham’s, Barbie Doll Culture and the American Waistland, “Many women (young and old) try to meet the standards, often harming their bodies and their self-concepts.”  These women struggle to become the “perfect” woman, “wholesome, popular, and perky.  In short, a plastic doll” (Cunningham).  The Barbie doll, as harmless as she first may seem, is destroying the youth of America.  She is a slow and silent predator, infiltrating and obliterating your child’s perception of the world and destructively redefining it.  She creates unrealistic expectations for women within the minds of youth.
It has come to a point where Barbie has become so influential in American society that it is no longer necessary to own or even to see a Barbie to be affected by it.  Nearly all young woman in America have fallen prey to the influential doll.  They dream of becoming Barbie, as if she were real, a six-foot, 100-pound, physical wonder.  Most of these women will spend their whole lives thinking their bodies are less than perfect; their breasts are too small, they are not tall enough, or their thighs and buttocks are too big. Whatever the case may be, these women feel pressured to fit an impossible mold constructed by Barbie herself.
The repercussions are seemingly endless.  Even after Barbie has found her final resting place in the attic of your home, the seeds of self-hatred already have been planted.  Barbie never leaves the lives of your children. Approximately seven million girls and women in America have an eating disorder. About 25% of these females will die as a direct result of their disorder. Half of all teenage girls think they should be on a diet.  Around 81% of ten-year-olds are afraid of being fat.  The effect Barbie has on the body images of women across America is appalling. However, eating disorders encompass only a fraction of the problems caused by the infamous doll.  Not only do women feel pressured to appear physically flawless, they also have to be flawlessly successful.  They want the high-profile careers, the pink convertibles, and the mansions with the pink hot tubs.  They will settle for nothing less.  It is no wonder why, presently, depression is more prevalent in women.
Manufacturers of children’s toys should research more carefully the social and emotional impact their “harmless plastic toys” may have on children. Are Barbie’s financial benefits more important to corporate leadership than the lives of millions of Americans?  I sincerely hope not. American society needs repair. The perception of beauty has been so severely altered that it would take years to recover, however, recuperation is possible.  With persistence and determination we can eliminate the “social terrorism” caused by toys such as Barbie, one G.I. Joe at a time.