Would You Buy an Overweight Barbie?

There has been a lot of focus lately on the weight and size of women thanks to several recent events. If you missed any of them, I will summarize them for you:

Ralph Lauren's company retouched a model to the point that her body looked emaciated with a large head stuck on it. They pulled the ad and apologized. That same model was fired for being larger than the sample size clothes she was supposed to fit into. She is 5'10", 115-120 lbs., and a size 4. The samples are either a size 2 or 0. Just in today, it looks like the Ralph Lauren people are at it again, with yet another freakishly retouched model who looks to be all head and no body. Then Karl Lagerfeld, who used to be quite fat himself, came out and said, "No one wants to see curvy women." He went on to say that fashion and models are all about illusion and fantasy.

O.K. Illusion and fantasy are fine when you are drawing cartoons, but these models are live human beings. This model does not look healthy or attractive and yet she is on the runway for a large fashion house:

Who finds this attractive other than gay men?

Here is another example of a model on the runway for one of the large fashion houses. Do you find this an attractive example of illusion and fantasy? Whose fantasy includes starving women who are so thin they can barely stand up?

Here is Barbie. Barbie has an extra long neck, very thin legs and a waist so small a human female would have to have a rib removed to look like her.

So here is my question to you: Would you buy on overweight Barbie? If Barbie looked more like the average woman, would you want her? Would your kids want her? The average woman in the U.S. is 5'4" and around 142 lbs. She is not modeling anything. She is most likely not an actress, a rock star, or a doll. She would be deemed too fat for any of that. Is it any wonder most of us feel fat?

If normal weighted women filled the pages of say, the Victoria's Secret cataloge, would they sell as many clothes? Are we buying the clothes hoping to look like the models who are wearing them? If so, they must get a lot of returns.

If you'd like to participate in the research for Irene's new book, please take the survey.

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Comments

[sunnybunny]

They made one not long ago. It was modeled after Rosie O'donnell. I don't think it went over well, but what if they had modeled it after America Ferrera, or Jennifer Hudson? It might have worked.

[soylentorange]

I'd like to offer another perspective. I have struggled with anorexia and disordered eating since as far back as I can remember. It never had to do with the media or the fashion industry - not remotely. I was quite sheltered growing up. I watched only PBS and Disney movies and was never even exposed to fashion magazines. I certainly didn't grow up in an environment that cast scorn on "normal" female bodies or promoted thinness. Yet somehow, as a toddler, I developed the conviction that, if I was not significantly underweight, my body was not as it should be. For so many years now I have lived with the fear that somehow I'll lose control (as I did as a teenager when I was put into treatment against my will and force-fed) and not be able to maintain my body in the state that it needs to be in order for me not to feel like I'm crawling out of my skin. I lead a relatively normal life, but when it comes to food, I have to control everything so extremely that I am very, very limited in a lot of respects. Did this have anything to do with Barbies, fashion models, etc? Not one bit. Maybe I'm the exception, but making generalizations about people who suffer from eating disorders still feels quite unfair.

[wietog]

Why not just make normal-looking dolls? Perhaps Barbie is the reason little boys and girls grow up to fetishize an unnatural, unnattainable look?

[EdCoughlin]

I don't get the point of all these articles complaining about how models don't reflect most American women (and I'd throw men in here too). Yes, most American women are fat, as are most American men. That is a bad thing, we should not be told it is ok. Being fat is not OK, it is unhealthy, unattractive and most of all expensive. Fat people eat more food, are less productive (studies have shown) are more often sick and develop serious and expensive lifelong conditions like diabetes.

People should be shown skinny models of both genders and told to aspire to such an appearance. Heaven forbid some of the size 14 women decided to put down the big mac and do some situps instead of watching Kate plus 8 once in a while or a 40 inch waist man took a walk that wasn't to the fridge for another Budweiser.

The solution is to encourage good habits, not to justify bad ones. The solution is to get people to be more active with shame being one of many tools, not to take the torrid approach and make fat seem ok so they can be marketed to better. Fat isn't OK, nor will it ever be as long as we have to pick up the tab for bad health as a community.

[KoiPondering]

You do realize there is a mid point between freakishly thin and obesity right? and that its actually more than possible for a woman at a size 14 to be not only fit but at a correct weight? The question shouldn't be if its "okay" to be "fat" but WHY is there such a high amount of people who are overweight. One does not aspire as a small child to be fat, teased and a fashion leper... I know.. its hard to imagine.

[ladyoftheisland]

Even when I was a kid I knew Barbie's legs were freakishly long, her boobs unbalanced with her waist and hips. I think she would have sold just as well had her measurements been a little - not a lot but a little - less extreme. When she first came out it was all about the clothes (when Barbie was young, girls had ONE doll and multiple outfits, lots of us sewed many of them ourselves).

[Deborah Paley]

In re-reading this article, I think you need to do a lot more research next time. Your stats are not even up to date.

[gfk]

As a straight man, I have to say that these models are repulsive. Since these women are chosen ultimately by the designers, and the MAJORITY of top designers happen to be gay men, it is safe to assume that these women were not handpicked by straight men or women. Someone not only finds this attractive, but a standard of beauty that should be used to sell super expensive designer duds. Lagerfeld's comment, as Irene referred to, pretty much summed it up when he said, "No one wants to see curvy women." If there are gay men out there who don't feel as Lagerfeld (and most other designers do) then good for you. Why don't you get in there and take over the fashion industry as it is currently damaging to the women I love.

[pennywhite]

Fanned!

[Steven A Wilson]

As a gay man I find your "conclusion" absurd, insulting, and untrue. If the focus of your ire was intended for a few select designers who happen to be gay (Karl Lagerfeld et al) then you should have said as much. Focus on those specific people -- but don't drag down the entire Gay male population in a misguided opinion piece.

The last time I checked -- there was no shortage of voluptuous women on the gay icon roster. Not only do gay men enjoy the physiques of women like Marilyn and Beyonce (not size 0s) -- it's preferred. Perhaps life is different for you in the fashion industry bubble. I suggest gathering the opinions of the average gay man and not the buffoons who wander through their days in sunglasses with Asian fan in tow.

This is no different than a person writing -- "Who would want to steal a TV besides a black person?" because they happened to see a black person charged with theft on a local news report. (Because, you know, all black persons are thieves right?) That is basically what you have done here but this time around Gay men are the (unfortunate) focus of your complaints.

Do you have a right to call out ridiculous comments and attitudes? Indeed. But so do I.

[seppoyank]

It is unfortunate that the author of this article felt the need to gay bash. I had to stop reading when I got to that line.

I love fashion, love to talk fashion with my favorite fellas and I can say most certainly that there is no basis for the claim that gay men like skeletal women. I was showing a friend the Ralph Lauren pics just a few days ago and his response was identical to mine (why would they do that? It doesn't look good or right!)

In my personal experience, gay men are more accepting of women of all shapes and sizes. What matters is that the clothes fit the woman and that she wears them like she owns them.

[autmarfcvsmom]

Bravo!
Fanned.

[fitrgirl]

I would just also like to say that I agree that ED's go beyond marketing etc. but I think that a lot of us are not understanding that a major portion of women with ED's are far from the stereotypical teen longing to be a moviestar or model. I work with women who hold very powerful positions, usually held by men and guess what, they have the same bad patterns!

[fitrgirl]

I'd like to live to see the day this issue is moved away from thin or fat and moved into the fit arena. If we would focus on teaching women and girls easy healthy ways to feed their bodies we would be going a lot farther with this. If a healthy lifestyle was emphasized from childhood emaciated would be a sad look, not the desired one! Women who are mentally and physically fit would be a true force! I would not buy a barbie at all fat or thin because both are wrong. But if a barbie was made to reflect a fit, well balanced body type hell ya, just to insure that they KEPT making her I'd buy cases!

[mamaVISION]

Thanks for tackling the dreaded "gay men" theory on fashion. I've been blogging about the sick minded fashion industry since2006, as a way to make my own nightmare as a model at 16 in Paris go away.

Reality is gay men control the fashion industry. They want hangers, and they got them. Anyone who thinks that these girls (posing as women) are not starving & purging are kidding themselves -- the industry is demented.

My question is why do the female fashion leaders go along with it? Where is Donna Karan & Diane Von Furstenberg in all of this? Furstenburg is the head of the NY Council on Fashion Designers for goodness sake, & she sits there with her head in the sand (check out their site cfda dot com, they just happened to have given good ole Ralph Lauren an award)

As to the overweight Barbie question - the answer is a flat out NO. If we are real with ourselves, we want to see this impossible human form, wouldn't we have objected to it a long time ago? Sad & pathetically true.

As a result, we have fueled the "proanorexia" community, a growing community of women claiming anorexia is not a disease -- its a lifestyle. One search on Google brings up millions of pages where you can view their "thinspiration" videos backed by proana lyrics and featuring page after page of magazine images where their anorexic model idols drive them to their goal --death.

Ok, rant over

[krisgarfield]

Rant on!!! Incredible! Good for you....

[Irene Rubaum-Keller - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you so much for your comment mamavision. Extremely well said and by someone who has been there and knows the inside of the industry. I am sorry you went through that. Great point about where the female designers are in this. I wrote to Donatella once, as her own daughter has been hospitalized several times with extreme anorexia. Very sad. Let's just keep ranting and who knows, maybe things will change.

[Zonie]

Perhaps we should stop ranting.........and stop BUYING.

[MerhabaAbi]

The women in men's magazines are fit an well shaped, that's what sells those magazines because that's what men find attractive. Fashion magazines have emaciated women because women buy the magazines with those models. Ralph Loren is catering to women's tastes and Hugh Hefner is catering to men's tastes. Which is better?

[Kim Stagliano - Huffpost Blogger]

Which comes first? The anorexia or the modeling career? Is the modeling industry simply employing yougn women who otherwise, would be unemployable? Can you imagine taking your Big Mac, supersized fries, fried apple pie and 32 ounce Diet Coke from a cashier so thin she's not quite as wide as the straw she handed you? McDonald's would never hire her - she's frankly repulsive anywhere BUT the runway or as an extra in a movie about Nazi Germany.

Our problem in America is OBESITY - not ultra-thiness. And dolls aren't the answer. Not thin ones. Not fat ones. Not ones in between.

Now, I DO have a problem with whichever designers brought back leggings and tunics. That is not going to end well.

[Irene Rubaum-Keller - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Kim, Thanks for commenting. Actually there are a lot of women/girls who never model who are anorexic and/or bulimic as they are trying to look like these models. These models would not have a modeling career if they weren't this thin. Sad.

[Kim Stagliano - Huffpost Blogger]

Irene, I understand. I recall seeing our first babysitter - who was 12 when we met her and then moved away, at age 18, graduating from high school, and clearly anorexic. It stunned me. My husband had a boss whose daughter was anorexic and shared their trauma with us. It's a very real problem - no question. And I am not mocking it. I just don't see the modeling industry as being at fault - any more than I see video games as responsible for the actions of mentally unstable young men who blast away at high schools. Thanks. KIM

[zombie fairy]

Eating disorders are far more complex than the simple desire to look like a runway model. That may be as far as it goes for some ED girls, and they're the lucky ones. Their disordered eating seems much easier to deal with. For many of us (I had an ED in my 20s), it goes far deeper, into issues of self-worth and love and competition. People with eating disorders inhabit a bizarre mental world.

[AgnesBankhead]

Plus Size Barbie !!!

i can't believe mattel hasn't jumped on this one .........

[Irene Rubaum-Keller - Huffpost Blogger]

I wonder how well she would sell.

[CatTheGadfly]

I found Barbie repulsive as a child, because she looked nothing like anyone I knew. Interestingly, I was, and still am, thin with long blonde hair... Of course, in those days I watched PBS, not MTV, and my standard of beauty was Snow White and Glinda the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz.

I was fine with my 1940's dolls who looked like modest long-haired 12-year-olds. I don't recall what the doll's body looked like. I was interested in her hair and clothes. When I was that age, I wasn't even interested in my OWN body, except caring that it was healthy and could run fast.

I wouldn't buy any sort of "Barbie", because I just can't get past the whole insipid bimbo trashy look, but I'd certainly get a doll with normal human proportions. I'm generally hesitant about getting adult-looking dolls for kids, but that Michelle Obama action figure has possibilit­ies...thou­gh it does look as if they shaved off a few pounds. We'll see.

[Irene Rubaum-Keller - Huffpost Blogger]

I haven't seen the Michelle Obama action figure. Michelle is 5'11", like the models, but she is a size 12. She would be deemed way too big to model.

[CatTheGadfly]

Yes, she'd make zero as a model (unless she decided NOW to be a model for charity, as the First Lady, which really wouldn't count). But having a woman who rather emphasizes the "whole package" - intelligence, education, personality, decency, kindness - making best dressed lists AND quite literally being the screaming sensation of schoolgirls in Europe is promising. She is certainly elegant, but not fabulously beautiful and not thin. African American women have historically had more realistic standards of attractive weight that White women, but the little girls who are looking up to her are of all racial backgrounds.

When given a choice, girls (at least a lot of girls) are able to admire women for the right reasons. However, if the choice is "looks only", thin WILL win. We need to see more of the "whole package".