NEGATIVE IMPACT OF BARBIE DOLL TO CHILDREN DEVELOPMENT

Introduction

Barbie definition describes a fashionable girl with long legs. The production of Barbie began in 1950. The image of the doll was taken from the German doll Lilly. Barbie cultural effect is great. The doll can have completely different occupations, such as model, doctor, politician, paleontologist, astronaut and others. But Barbie impact on children is not always positive.

In her history, barbie is the best-selling and the most famous doll in the world. The debut of the doll was on the American International Toy Fair in 1959. Mattel Inc. is the company producing the doll. Totally Hair Barbie is the name of Barbie which is considered to be the most popular doll. It was manufactured and appeared on the market in 1992. Barbie definition in this case is a doll with very long legs. In 1950 it was Ruth Handler who got an idea of creating a doll of that kind. It happened accidentally when the woman noticed that her daughter preferred playing with the dolls that resembled adults. At that time the dolls usually looked like babies or like small children. But Ruth's daughter Barbara preferred playing with paper dolls which looked like adults. The woman realized that there was a loophole in the production of dolls. She told about it to her husband Eliot Handler who was one of the co-founders of the Mattel toy company. Unfortunately the idea was not accepted. The directors of the company were sure it was impossible to make such a doll. Nevertheless, during the trip to Germany Ruth Handler noticed a doll in a shop that looked like and adult. Its name was Lilly. Lilly was the exact copy of the image the woman had in her mind. That is why she bought three dolls. One of them she gave to Barbara. As for the two others, she took them to the company. Lilly had a certain image. It is necessary to mention that the image of the doll was taken from a character in a popular comic strip. Lilly was represented as a fashionable girl who knew her desires and used men to fulfill them. The production of the doll in Germany began in 1955. Initially it was oriented on adults in tobacco shops and bars. Nevertheless, the doll became very popular with children who could wear her in the outfits sold separately. The doll got so popular that it was exported to other countries including the USA. It is necessary to say that Barbie cultural effect was great. Barbie definition includes the idea of gender equality, an example that the woman can be anything. The doll can have quite various occupations, such as an Olympic athlete, dentist, veterinarian, doctor, nurse, fashion designer, politician, firefighter, tourist at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, paleontologist, astronaut, model, rock star, McDonald's employee and others. Though the Barbie definition includes so many occupations, specialists say that the doll may have negative impact on young girls. It may provoke problems connected with body image and uncertainties about the role of the woman in the society. It is possible to mention the fact that a lot of famous designers were given an opportunity to create clothing for Barbie. Among them are Donna Karan, Nicole Miller, Escada, Ralph Lauren, Bill Blass, Calvin Klein, Bob Mackie, Christian Dior, Anne Klein and Donatella Versace. Today the industry of Barbie dolls reaps $1.9 billion dollar a year. The producing company claims that every second Barbie dolls are sold. Its case show that barbie as core culture icon especially for young girl who like consume barbie doll.

The children development

Barbie doll as toys for children also bring implisit things for them. There are core culture icon which can be influence pattern of thought and habit toward children development. According to wikipedia the free encyclopedia that child development refers to the biological and psychological changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescence, as the individual progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy. Some age-related development periods: newborn (ages 0–1 month); infant (ages 1 month – 1 year); toddler (ages 1–3 years); preschooler (ages 4–6years); school-aged child (ages 6–13 years); adolescent (ages 13–20). The optimal development of children is considered vital to society and so it is important to understand the social, cognitive, emotional, and educational development of children. It has been suggested by theorists such as Piaget that cognitive development proceeds in a stage-like fashion, with qualitative as well as quantitative differences between one age period and others. Cognitive ability appears to move forward rapidly at times when certain achievements are evident; for example, the preschooler's new ability to conserve number (to know that the number of objects present stays the same even though the objects are differently distributed) is a necessary foundation for arithmetic and enables a number of advances. However, it is not clear to what extent apparent stages are simply the results of increased speed of information processing or increased knowledge base.Not all children will develop at the same speed or in any of the same patterns in many other children. They will individually find their own speed and learn their own patterns in time. They can not be rushed to learn or to pick up on things, this will make them more adjacent to wanting to follow their parents or to learn at all. Usually if the child is surrounded by other children they will influence your child to develop much more quickly and you will find that your child and the children they associate with will develop in near enough the same time and patterns.

Cognitive development has genetic and other biological mechanisms, as is seen in the many genetic causes of mental retardation. However, although it is assumed that brain functions cause cognitive events, it has not been possible to measure specific brain changes and show that they cause cognitive change. Developmental advances in cognition are also related to experience and learning, and this is particularly the case for higher-level abilities like abstraction, which depend to a considerable extent on formal education.There are few population differences in cognitive development. Boys and girls show some differences in their skills and preferences, but there is a great deal of overlap between the groups. Differences in cognitive achievement of different ethnic groups appears to result from cultural or other environmental factors

The influence of advertisement on television

Children development also influenced by their environment, where toys and television are great influence for them. We can see advertisement by Mattel inc. Which describe about barbie with beautifull, interest, glamour, and soft. These words used Mattel to fascinating children for buy some barbies. The study investigated which explain abouy the influence of television commercials for toys and cereals on young children. Forty-four children, ranging in age from 4 to 7 years, were interviewed regarding their television viewing habits, their attitudes toward television commercials, their demands for their mothers to buy cereals and toys, and their interpretation of the reality of commercials. The mothers of these children completed a questionnaire about their children's television viewing habits, their own attitudes toward commercials, and their reactions to their children's demands for advertised products. The data were analyzed by computing percentages and the results revealed several trends. The more television the children watched, the more they demanded advertised products. Most of the time, mothers did not yield completely to their children's demands for advertised products. Children were able to name their specific preferences and dislikes for television commercials and they tended to prefer commercials which were related to their interests. Parental discussion on the content and selling techniques of television advertisements reduced the extent of children's demands for advertised products and the extent of parental yielding to demands. Boys and girls did not show particular differences in responding to television commercials.

The negative effect of barbie culture to children development

Barbie holds the distinction of being the first doll to become an adult figure in the child’s life, needing precious little in the way of care taking from her child owner. She became an icon, a role model, a figure to be emulated and revered, transforming the child’s role of caretaker to one of the passive bystander and observer of a creature who had made it in life and had it all. She would ultimately become a representative of our own culture. Mothers, as well as their daughters took in Barbie’s messages about how shape and size matters at the very brink of our society’s revolution for women who were becoming liberated, entering the professions in greater numbers, becoming divorced, participating in the sexual revolution, blending families, and abandoning mealtimes and family rituals in favor of work force and the work out. Barbie, along with England’s Twiggy in the 60’s, led the way to create what was to become the new standard of beauty in the female figure.

If she were alive, Barbie would be a woman standing 7 feet tall with a waistline of 18 inches and a bustling of 38-40. In fact, she would need to walk on all fours just to support her peculiar proportions. Yet media advertising, television and Hollywood would reinforce her message, influencing what would become the American ideal of beauty. By the time a girl is 17 years old, she has received over 250,000 such commercial messages through the media. Body image disturbances, typically the result of such exposure, are clearly dangerous to our youth not just because their preoccupation precludes clarity of thought, the ability to concentrate and learn, and attaining the developmental milestones of childhood, but also because they typically lead to the fear of being overweight, and therefore to dieting and food restriction, to becoming malnourished and/or excessively thin, and ultimately to the onset of clinical eating disorders. Eating disorders are the most lethal of all of the mental health disorders, killing or maiming 6-13% of their victims, 87% of whom are under the age of 20.

The Barbie doll is one of the most successful toys of the 20th century and, arguably, the icon of female beauty and the American dream (Rogers, 1999; Turkel, 1998): According to the manufacturer, every three seconds a Barbie doll is purchased. Barbie has been said to touch every girl's life (Rogers, 1999). There continues to be disagreement over the messages the Barbie doll sends and the toy's place in the lives of young girls. The extant literature about Barbie dolls tends to be opinionated and based on essays and popular media articles ("Barbie's Missing Accessory: Food," 1994; La Ferle, 1997; Lord, 1994; McDough, 1999; Suhay, 2000; Mulrine, 1997). Some claim that the toy represents the paradigm of adult female beauty to which young girls learn to aspire (Freedman, 1986; Turkel, 1998). It has been argued that Barbie dolls reflect a highly sexualized image and circumscribe girls' play by emphasizing prescribed roles and patterns of interaction. It is feared that by dramatizing stereotypical feminine roles during play, girls will internalize and later embody such roles (Freedman, 1986).

Despite the vocal opinions that abound about the influence of Barbie dolls on girls' development, there is a paucity of empirical research examining the impact of Barbie dolls on the lives of girls. Surveys have suggested that Barbie dolls are among girls' first or second "most favorite toys" between ages eight and twelve (Sutton-Smith, 1986). Sociobiological research with adults has indicated that the Barbie doll's body shape is perceived as attractive, perhaps because it represents health and fertility, from an evolutionary perspective, despite its physical impossibility (Margo, 1997). Recently, and most pertinent to the present study, Rogers (1999) explored individuals' experiences with Barbie dolls. She gathered writing samples from male and female junior high school students, college students, and adults. Each group was asked to write about their experiences with Barbie dolls. All of the participants had knowledge of Barbie dolls, but mixed views about the doll's influence on girls prevailed. The majority of adolescent girls felt positively about Barbie, while boys distanced themselves from "play" with Barbie dolls, and instead reported disfiguring the dolls through a variety of methods.

No more than Santa Claus and Clausism. Barbie is a very attractive and beautiful role model, there are or were also various occupational and historical settings which have been covered elsewhere- Veterinarian Barbie, for example. there are Ethnically correct Barbies for different nationalities including Russia and Italy and they are different in the right ways, beyond costuming. Internatioal culture and understanding can be fostered in this fashion. I can"t see any harm in a cultural product like Barbie, on the other hand a sort of trash or junk culture with no taste standards can be found with products, also dolls, such as ( Raggedy Ann and Andy), Cabbage Patch kids, Bratz, and some other sources of junk culture. That I cannot buy, except possibly with comic animals and cartoons like the Pokey Little Puppy,etc. It is obvious that barbies are bad if you do lots of research. They are a bad influence and the manufactures only care about the money. Well, there are two sides to every story. Barbie shows that women can do anything with 108 careers including presidential candidate, UNICEF ambassador and doctor. On the other hand she gives young girls and women a bad image about themselves, making them think that they should look like her with her torpedo breasts, tiny waist, long legs and big hips. This can lead to eating disorders or depression of young girls.

Conclusion

The most negative impact of barbie doll is stereotype of having a perfect body is not reflective of real humans and girls would get the perception that every woman should look like a Barbie Doll which to achieve that look leads to disorders such an anorexia. Many young girl get impact from ”beauty” of barbie.they want made her body like barbie doll (slim, white body,and elegant). We can see Krisdayanti who indonesian famous singer. She try to make over her body for same with barbie doll whom reflected perfect women. Its become strong influence toward children which has develop. We should accompany our children when they watching television and playing their toys. We can give them some advice for lead better future and become themselve without “poison” with barbie culture which bring negative effect for them.