Plus Size Barbie Is Overweight, But Should The Obese Image Be Encouraged?

The plus size Barbie is overweight and triple-chinned. But some people believe the obese Barbie goes too far and shouldn’t be produced by Mattel.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, a plus size model named Robyn Lawley slammed designer who pressure girls to lose weight and has even opened her own plus size swim suit line.

Any parents who are appalled by the idea should rest easy since Mattel hasn’t even considered making a plus size Barbie. The image of the overweight Barbie was created as part of an illustration contest on Worth1000.com. The Facebook page Plus Size Modeling stirred the controversy by asking people whether they thought it would be a good idea to have a Barbie doll with an expanding waistline. So far over 40,000 people have liked the idea.

Regardless, many people are taking issue with the idea of having an obese Barbie:

“No one is naturally fat for gods sake, that’s sending the message to girls that it’s ok to look like this and be unhealthy. How about we stop obsessing about being overweight and teach our children to eat healthy and get out and play…”

Even people who are obese themselves apparently feel the “double chin isn’t necessary” on the plus size Barbie. Chrystal Bougon, the owner of Curvy Girl Lingerie in San Jose, says, “I’d prefer to see a plus sized Barbie, a curvy girl Barbie doll that doesn’t have a triple chin, but if that’s all we get, I’ll take it.”

If you took the proportions of a not so fat Barbie doll, and applied them to real women, then a real life Barbie would have to be 16 inches while the average American woman is 37.5 inches (even the Human Barbie called Valeria Lukyanova isn’t that thin). So some people say the regular Barbie doll is too make believe and perhaps Mattel should consider doing an “average” Barbie:

“How about we just make average Barbie? Didn’t they come out with a study recently that took the average measurements of a certain age group and show what Barbie would look like with those? Let’s do that.”

Do you think the plus size Barbie is a good or bad idea?