Mattel announced that Barbie will finally start to look like real women – tall, short, flat-footed and even curvy.
Over the past few years, Mattel has released Barbie dolls with more realistic body shapes and a variety of skin tones and hair textures representing the diversity of the children who love to play with them.
This year, Mattel has taken this a step further, announcing that Barbie dolls will now be available in a variety of new body types – Tall, Petite, and Curvy.
For parents of young children, and for those of us in the fitness industry, this is great news. For too many girls, being stick-skinny and “perfect” is a very real, and potentially dangerous, aspiration. It starts at an alarmingly young age, and continues on into adulthood for many women.
Here at Koko FitClub, we see far too many clients come to us feeling broken, having carried around the physical and mental burden of a negative body image their entire lives. Each has different needs and requires an individualized solution and coaching to restore confidence and rebuild a healthy body, undoing years of damage to body and mind.
We do not live in a one-size-fits-all world, and we applaud Mattel for making these important changes to reflect our many shapes and sizes.
Our differences are what make us human, and wonderful. Moving away from the one-size idealized Barbie of the past, and allowing children to choose a doll that more closely resembles the real women in their lives, is a big step towards redefining the modern standard of healthy and beauty for our children, and ourselves.
— Lauren Dell’Olio
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