Can realistic dolls protect body satisfaction in young girls?

Lynda G Boothroyd,Martin J Tovée,Elizabeth H Evans

doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2021.02.004

Lynda G Boothroyd, Martin J Tovée + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2021.02.004

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Abstract

Ultra-thin fashion dolls may represent a risk factor for thin-ideal internalisation and body dissatisfaction amongst young girls. We asked thirty one 5- to 9-year-old girls to engage in interactive play with commercially available dolls which were either ultra-thin (Barbie and Monster High) or represented a putative realistic childlike shape (Lottie and Dora) and to indicate their perceived own-body size and ideal body size on an interactive computer task both before and after play. There was a significant interaction between testing phase and doll group such that playing with the ultra-thin dolls led to the girls’ ‘ideal self’ becoming thinner. A further 46 girls played with the ultra-thin dolls and then played with either the same dolls again, the realistic childlike dolls, or with cars. Initial play with the ultra-thin dolls again produced a drop in perceived ideal own body size; however, no group showed any significant change in their body ideals during the additional play phase. These data indicate the potential benefit of dolls representing a realistic child body mass to young girls’ body satisfaction and do not support the hypothesis that the negative impacts of ultra-thin dolls can be directly countered by other toys.

Highlights

Body dissatisfaction exists in epidemic proportions in the UK (Burrowes, 2013) and is a significant public health concern (Bucchianeri & Neumark-Sztainer, 2014), amongst young girls, affecting more than half of preadolescents (Wertheim, Paxton, & Blaney, 2009)
Because a larger number of participants were included in the ultra-thin condition versus in Study 1, we explored whether the initial impact of playing with the ultra-thin dolls on body perceptions was associated with age; Dittmar et al (2006) found stronger impacts on viewing Barbie amongst their younger participants
One participant had an outlier score on ideal self at baseline, and another had an outlier score on body dissatisfaction at baseline; removing them from the ideal self/dissatisfaction analyses respectively did not change the results reported below so they were retained in the analyses

Summary

Introduction

Body dissatisfaction exists in epidemic proportions in the UK (Burrowes, 2013) and is a significant public health concern (Bucchianeri & Neumark-Sztainer, 2014), amongst young girls, affecting more than half of preadolescents (Wertheim, Paxton, & Blaney, 2009). Late childhood and the preadolescent period (for our purposes, approximately ages 6 to 11) comprise a window over which key aspects of body image schemata develop, precise agerelated trajectories still remain unclear (Neves, Cipriani, Meireles, da Rocha Morgado, & Ferreira, 2017). These key aspects include anti-fat bias (Harriger, Schaefer, Thompson, & Cao, 2019; Skinner et al, 2017), thin-ideal internalisation (Evans, Tovee, Boothroyd, & Drewett, 2013), and evaluative appearance concerns, e.g., body dissatisfaction (Paraskeva & Diedrichs, 2019). Dolls remain highly popular toys across the US and Europe: 2020 US sales figures showed 22% growth in the ‘doll’ category whilst Mattel announced 29% growth in Barbie gross sales (Businesswire, 2020)

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