Mommy I Want Plus Size Barbie

^

I don't know how I'll ever keep up with this unattainable standard of male beauty.

Yes, but that's prepubescent Justin Bieber. Somehow he managed to remain a small child until he finally turned legal. Although he is a perfect indicator of what I'm talking about when I say that people who want underweight dates are really just looking for someone who is pubertal.

Related note: I never felt the slightest bit pressured or bothered by images of ripped guys in print media. I rolled my eyes at A&F models even when I was rotund. Looking back, it's because I knew even when I was portly and weak that I could easily turn into one of those muscle-bound folks with ease. Instead, I wound up focusing on the very slim and fit (like Olympic swimmers, not like underweight hipsters). I think there may be a lot to be said for people aspiring to what they'll never have. All of my boyfriends have been rather underweight and explicitly attracted to me because I have a stocky frame, so I don't think I'm completely off-base.

That's not Biebs now. You're free to look like you're a child until you hit 18 then like a butterfly you emerge from your cocoon looking jacked. Or you fail at life.



Pro-tier. Step your game up males.

If you aren't posing that average women define themselves in relation to the models those clothes are presented on, then what exactly is your point? Go to any clothing store, even a "trendy" one and you'll see how hard it is for a small woman to find clothes in her size. My wife has more trouble finding a good selection of clothes in size 2 than any woman in the 8-16 range ever does. Stores cater to the people who spend money, and since so many women are in that range, that's what they have. Who cares if the girl on the poster is super skinny, do you think I look like the guy in the Subaru commercial? Should those advertisers be shamed for presenting their product with a good looking male model so I don't have to feel like an ugly duckling when I decide to buy a car?

Models are super skinny for ascetic reasons, sure, but also for logistical reasons. If you need to make an outfit to show off, it needs to fit the model correctly. That means they need to be of a uniform size and shape, because you may end up putting it on someone else at a moment's notice. I highly doubt you could make the same justifications for putting an unrealistically attractive person next to a car.

On the subject of sizing, I really do have to wonder at vanity sizing. Women have been used to the fungibility of sizes for decades, but lately it has crept into men's clothing. I spent a certain amount of time in denial about how fat I'd gotten because my waist size had allegedly not changed.

It goes right back to the problem of Barbie. Most girls won't develop a complex from playing with Barbie dolls any more than boys will from GI Joe dolls, but a minority will. If we make a Honey Boo Boo Barbie, though, it can have the opposite effect. Or, hell, just look at Honey Boo Boo and her spawn: her daughter is chubby because she wants to be like mommy and that is a very common problem for kids. There's a lot to be said for what data we present.

I think this is why people like to use weight instead of more reliable numbers, too. Waist size or, better, waist-to-hip ratio is so much better at assessing someone at a glance than weight. It's for exactly that reason, I suspect, that most people are interested in knowing how much someone weighs. Online dating sites, for instance, rarely have a waist size measure (ironically, I've only ever seen it on a hookup site, but I have not done a comprehensive survey).

Also, returning to the subject of shaming people, like everything else in the world, it has at least a 5% "success" rate. Since you just build a cycle of shame, though, it isn't actually successful any more than shaming an alcoholic with AA rhetoric is successful. My little brother carried a few extra pounds when he was a kid, lost it when puberty started, and is now obsessed with being anorexic thin. The only things keeping him alive are working in a chocolate shop (I am not kidding) and that he has less self-control than he wishes he had. He looks markedly unhealthy, too.

We're not far from shaming people that like to stay thin and in shape.

/rubs temples

Some of you seem to think that the psyche of a young girl is as fragile as a porcelain doll. It's a doll. Most girls know that. I can't recall any girl saying that she wanted to look like Barbie while growing up. It was more or less, "I want to do what Barbie does," because Barbie is everything and her hobbies or occupations were the present interests of whatever each individual girl wanted.

Girls eventually find strength/purpose/fulfillment in their own talents and natural abilities, if they are given the opportunity to discover and harness them. At some point (tail-end of high school and/or beginning of college), you do reach the level where you choose fashion icons by your specific body-type and style.

If you're conforming to the idea, "What are little boys made of? Slugs, snails, and puppy-dogs' tails. What are little girls made of? Sugar, spice, and everything nice," you have a fairly antiquated view, and you're also failing to recognize individual personalities.

It's a doll.

It's a doll.

It's a damn doll.

I think that's a little extreme, but there is a very strong push to make fit people feel like they are contributing to psychoses simply by virtue of being fit.

And an overall negative attitude about fit people; with assumptions that they are vain, obsessed, shallow, etc. simply because they are in shape and it takes effort that most people are not willing to do.

With the attitude that most of the people who do it present, it's not really an assumption.

I think it comes down to psychological motivations.

ex:

Is one slim and fit because its a by product of activities one enjoys?

Versus

Is one slim and fit because one is fixated on self image and social perceptions?

They already are, fat people now are more numerous then non-fat people. It's now socially acceptable for a fat person to insult a thin person but the SJW types go all nuts if the thin person insults the fat person. Take note of this thread and the hostile tone taken towards me by the SJW's. The fat folks even created "thin privilege" as an excuse for why they don't get attention. It's not that they are fat ***'s who can't take responsibility for their life, it's those damn thin folks and their "thin privilege" oppressing them.

The hostile tone taken towards you is solely because you're acting like a total douche, nothing more, nothing less.

Stop trying to act as if it's a war against thin people, that's insane.

Actually I found this out, the whole model body type thing. For awhile I was dating a Korean-Japanese swimsuit model and we would talk about this. Turns our swimsuit models and fashion models have to have different body types. Fashion models need to be skinny so as to fit multiple clothing types at a time in quick succession, the clothing sell's itself so they become a glorified mannequin. Swimsuit and lingerie models need to be fuller bodied as their sex appeal sells the clothing. Swimsuit models also need to have bigger breasts then the other two as you can always pad out / modify the lingerie during the photo shoot but you can't pad out the bikini.

Really funny thing is over here western girls have a really hard time finding clothing to fit them. Everything is much smaller sized.

You're seriously not going to sit there and say there is absolutely no psychological impact from printed images, photoshopping thighs thinner etc. on individuals.



Actually it does, and the APA and psychologist do agree things as simple as Barbie do lead to body dysmorphic disorder, Developmental Psychology 2006.The Negative Effects of Barbie on Young Girls an the Long Term Results

... are you trying to use that to cite that Westerners are somehow fatter? East Asian phenotypes are smaller in virtually every way, up to and including condom size (NB: condoms are sized by diameter, not length). People of African, European, or Middle Eastern descent are taller, broader, and more muscular than East Asians.

I'm with Jassik, you might be overreacting.

I mean, what age are you talking about? I know when I was eight I wasn't thumbing through 'Vogue' seeing what Anna Wintour had to say, and who honestly payed attention to the magazine rack while in line at the cash register at that age? There's bigger fish to fry! What can I con Mom into buying? A Reece's peanut butter cup, perhaps?

I will say that when my cousins came in from Germany at around that age, the youngest did comment on the size of a lady in a Rascal because she had never seen someone that big. Unfortunately, "fat" is pronounced the same way in both languages.

EDIT: Bacon, I see nothing in the article that points to them participating in activities that encourages confidence. No mention of their parents involving them in art, dance, sports, acting, music, etc. I'd like to see a study where they factor in this aspect.

I don't have access to that whole psych journal, just the snippets via the article.

Did you really just cite a field known for cattiness, anorexia, and substance abuse as something that would inspire a girl to not starve herself to death?

Thanks anyway, Bacon. I'm genuinely curious about it now. LOL!


Are you really under the assumption that every girl in dance goes to an extreme length like starving themselves?

EDIT: Harsh realities. Too tall, you're in the back. Too tall or heavy, you won't have a duet with a male partner. Up-side, *** it! Solo, if you win it!

And the world keeps spinning!

There's also more than ballet. Jazz, tap, lyrical, cheer, drill team, etc.

Erm, Onorgul...

My first major (before I changed it a billion times and settled on English) was dance. I did ballet, jazz, modern, hip hop, and Middle Eastern dance (belly dance.)

The girls were expected to get along. We shared a locker room, showers, bathrooms, classes, and if there were problems between any of us, we were expected to leave it at the door when we came to dance class. No cattiness allowed.

We were encouraged to be strong and fit. No anorexia. We'd start each class with situps and pushups and an aerobic warmup. If we were too hungry or not strong enough to do it, that was a problem. If a girl couldn't do it, or passed out in class from hunger, that was a big effing problem. Points would be deducted from her grades, she'd be sent to speak to counselors, she'd be forced to sit out of performances and classes which would hurt her grade further. No anorexia allowed.

Substance abuse-- ok. The girls would go out drinking on occasion, particularly after Finals or if it was someone's birthday. But of there were any other drugs, I never saw a sign of it.

Starve themselves? No. No, no, and no. To be a dancer, you have GOT to have muscle. To have muscle, you have GOT to eat. Any dancer who is starving herself is not reaching her full potential, not at all. Not even close.

And for some forms of dance, such as hip hop and belly dance, it was actually better looking on girls who had curves.

I am afraid that either you've never known a dancer, or whatever dancers you did know were very, very confused.

There is also no mention of the subjects' weight. Barbie's figure was also changed about 10 years ago to more accurately reflect the female form, original versions were so exaggerated that they could not have walked if they were real women. The current Barbie is an idealized, but possible representation of the female body. Only young girls who are already overweight would have body image issues when playing with a Barbie doll. At age 8, if a child is already aware of their body being unlike their peers or kids they see on TV, there is a much larger problem.

TL:DR
If an 8 year old feels fat next to Barbie, it's because their parents fill them with fast food and don't encourage exercise.

That might also have something to do with the "don't tread on me" response to the attempted reforms in school lunch programs and advertising targeted at kids.

Or unable to identify their strengths and adapt their selection in genera of dance accordingly.

Adapt, improvise, and overcome. A lesson for both sexes.

Former dancer here (and male, which made things about 1000x worse). Obviously our experiences are quite different. You got lucky because every other dancer I've met sure doesn't have a story like yours.

Edit:
Oh yeah, I deliberately didn't mention my background in order to see the accusations that would follow. Thanks for not disappointing. /sigh

I only knew one male dancer, and I will admit that he had it rough. He didn't fit in well with the girls, he was expected to partner for all of them, he wasn't often invited to hang out after class. The girls really didn't know what to do with him at all. (And some of the boyfriends of the dancers didn't like him either. Shocker.)

There's also the fact that I was a dancer in university, which is a different atmosphere than being a dancer in a professional company. Since our environment was a learning environment instead of a competitive environment, I'm sure that it was a lot less stressful for me.

But still. No dancer will ever reach their potential if they are anorexic. They simply will not have the strength and endurance to dance well. The only way I can see someone thinking that to be a dancer they must be anorexic is if that person never tried to dance. It's an incredible workout (especially when you have several dance classes in a day) and you have absolutely got to eat enough to keep up your strength and energy. An anorexic dancer is NOT going to make it.

I don't see her reply as any kind of accusation. She gave her experience and posed that your opinion wasn't based on experience. Obviously, if her's was that different than yours, something was very wrong with the programs you were involved in. I have had several friends involved in dance, one professionally, and she's told me stories identical to Liela's.

I ducked out after high school, so I can't say much for collegiate dance.

Unfortunately for our company, we had no male partners unless they were in seeking extra credit for high school, and it was usually only two who would be brought in on a yearly basis interchangeably.

When I was teaching Pre-K Combo and first and second year ballet while I was in high school, there was only one boy, and it seemed like a horribly awkward experience for him. He was seven/eight.

Org, you must have been in a big company if there were a few guys to duet with that weren't coaxed in by other motives. So, yeah...Whatever horrible experiences you might have had with girls, other girls in smaller companies through out the country would have given a non-existent left nut to have an experienced, capable, male partner, and not just a prop that lifts (and drops) them a few times.