Can A Fat Barbie Teach Healthy Lifestyles?

on February 18, 2009 at 5:20 PM

fast food, obesity You have to see this one to believe it.

Imagine a fat Barbie doll, sprawled out, double chin and all, in an advertisement. Well it really exists, but the ad is more like a Public Service Announcement.

Created by an organization called the Active Life Movement for Texas-based LatinWorks, the idea is to teach kids about the perils of obesity. But babble.com writer Hanna Tennant-Moore makes a great point: Did Skinny Barbie ever really encourage healthy body images and lifestyles?

LatinWorks mission is important—to encourage kids to be active and healthy—but it's questionable whether or not this ad campaign is really serving that goal. The ad's tag line is “Keep obesity away from your child.” Tennant-Moore suggests that this makes it sound as if being overweight is a contagious disease. I have to agree. No one wants an unhealthy child, but "keep obesity away" sure is awkward wording. Obesity isn't exactly the measles.

I'll admit, the imagery of a fat Barbie is definitely startling, but I could see it being offensive too.

What do you think about this ad campaign? Should organizations do whatever it takes to keep kids from getting fat? Where should they draw the line?

Filed Under: behavior, food, health, toys

Comments (20)

Cynthje

on Feb 18, 2009 at 6:16 PM

Why not have a healthy size barbie? Both the regular one and the fat one are not exactly good role models for girls.

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aurorabunny

on Feb 18, 2009 at 6:21 PM

I'm sorry but if you look around the United States, obesity might as well be a contagious disease. This is money wasted though IMO. Lots of parents need to be educated...if they don't know enough to make healthy food choices for themselves then there is no way they can make healthy food choices for their children. I'm sure there are also many children who eat perfectly healthy at home but are done a great disservice by the fact that in the majority of US school cafeterias the only food choices are nachos, hamburgers, fries and pizza. The whole country needs to wise up, not just parents. I fail to see the educational value of "Don't look like fat Barbie". Shock value can sometimes be a valid approach (Remember the anti-smoking commercial that just showed a pictured of blackened cancerous lungs?) but has serves no purpose in the arena of dietary education.

RanaAurora

on Feb 18, 2009 at 6:42 PM

What aurorabunny said.

DawnA72

on Feb 18, 2009 at 6:44 PM

The biggest problem with the obesity issue is the parents. Too many parents either don't know how to eat healthy, don't care to, don't want to, or are double income families with not enough time left over to prepare healthy foods. It's so much quicker and easier to stop at the local fast food joint and grab some pseudofood.

On top of the junk food, we have kids sitting around inside the house playing with the Wii, the Playstation, the Gameboy, the Nintendo, the PC and whatever else the latest trend is. Parents need to send those kids outside to run and play. Schools need to stop cutting recess and PE. Children need exercize.

So you can educate the children about healthy food choices until you are blue in the face, but what child is going to tell Mom and Dad "Can't we please have grilled chicken and carrot sticks instead of Pizza Hut tonight?"

The parents need to reform their ways. Once the parents clean up their unhealthy habits the children will learn from living in a healthy environment.

LuminousMom

neither "skinny" barbie or "fat" barbie are good roll models.. so personally I think its probably crossing the line. In a way, its also teaching kids that overweight means "bad, lazy, unattractive" and so on. I think the money could be much better spent in improving the food choices at schools, educating more parents on healthy eating, and bringing PE back to schools which have cut it for budget reasons.

fmchavez

on Feb 18, 2009 at 6:47 PM

Why aren't we striving for something in between? The skinny barbie doesn't do it, a fat barbie won't either. A healthy barbie is ideal, and shock value alone won't fix the problem.

MamaCatCat

on Feb 18, 2009 at 7:11 PM

I get the point they want to make, and I agree with it. But the message they are really sending is "Original skinny Barbie is good, this Fat Barbie is where we are headed and that's bad." Fat America is bad...but so is Annorexic America. I don't see how one trumps the other. The only difference is that skinny people are what's attractive, so apparently it's okay to be unhealthy as long as you're easy to look at.

SylviaNCali

on Feb 18, 2009 at 7:12 PM

How about many different barbies to show that people come in many sizes. Ideal or not. The one now is not even realistic to girls. This is why we got people going out to get fake boobs even though they're smaller. We need short, tall, medium barbies so that everyone can have their pick at what they want to get.