Barbie And Ken Look More Like Real People, New Study Finds

For decades, Barbie and Ken dolls were famous for having body shapes that almost no real person could ever match. Now, a new study says things have changed. Researchers found that today's Barbie and Ken dolls have body proportions much closer to those of real adults. The study was published in the science journal PLOS One and was led by researchers in Australia.

The lead researcher, Sara Grafenauer, is a professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University of New South Wales. She said that Barbie and Ken's waist, hip, and chest measurements are now within a normal range for real people. However, the dolls' measurements are still a bit smaller than the average real woman. 'Our study found that Barbie and Ken's body proportions today have become markedly more realistic,' Grafenauer said.

This new study comes almost 30 years after an earlier study made headlines. That older study, from the late 1990s, showed that the original Barbie and Ken had body shapes so extreme that fewer than 1 in 10 million real people could match them. The new research builds on that work to show how much things have improved. Kevin Norton, a professor of exercise science at Adelaide University, wrote the original 1996 study and also helped with this new one.

For this study, researchers measured the Fashionista line of Barbie dolls, which comes in four body types: Curvy, Tall, Petite, and Standard. They also measured a Ken doll and took detailed measurements of many body parts, including the chest, waist, hips, thighs, and arms. Then they compared those numbers to data collected from real U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 35. The results showed that both Barbie and Ken are now more realistic than they used to be.

Ken still has some measurements that do not match the average man, especially his chest-to-waist ratio. Still, researchers said the toy industry has made real progress in making dolls that better reflect the variety of body shapes seen in everyday life. Norton said these changes should give parents and health professionals some peace of mind. He called the greater diversity in body shapes 'a positive step that better reflects the people children see around them every day.'

Researchers also said that having more realistic dolls can help children in important ways. When toys look like the people children see in real life, it can help kids feel better about their own bodies. Co-researcher Belinda Durey, a lecturer at Adelaide University, said companies should keep adding even more variety in size and shape. 'There's no doubt that today's Barbie and Ken are still stylized, but they're substantially closer to average human body proportions than earlier generations, and that's a step in the right direction,' she said.