Applying that scale factor to the rest of Barbie’s measurement we get the following:
Libby’s barbified height: 29.5x7.99 =235.706 236cm
Libby’s barbified bust: 11.6 cm x7.99 = 92.684 cm 92.7 cm
Libby’s barbified hips: 12.7x 799 = 101.473 cm 101.5 cm
Average UK woman
If the average UK woman’s waist remains the same size then using fractions we see that Average UK woman’s waist/Barbie’s waist=86.3 cm/8.9 cm = 9.7
Average UK woman’s height: 9.7x29.5 cm=286.152.97m
Average UK woman’s bust: 9.7x11.6 cm=112.52 1.12m
Average UK woman’s hips: 9.7x12.7 cm=123.19 1.23m
Reflection on results:
Is Barbie a realistic model of a young woman?
Not in any way! If the barbified average UK woman was real she would be 24cm taller than the tallest man that have ever lived. She would be the woman with the second biggest natural bust and she would most likely have hips in that category as well (no UNIS appropriate websites was found about this topic). If she was alive she would like something out of this world in a bad way.
Why have Mattel used these dimensions for Barbie?
Because Barbie looks like societies ideal of a “perfect” woman; tall with a slim waist and large hips and bust. A body that nearly no women have and most of those who does haven’t gotten it through nature’s way but through plastic operations or other things like that. However it is still effective for Mattel as small girls always want the prettiest doll and who are prettier than the absolutely stunning Barbie?
Is it ok for Mattel to use these dimensions for Barbie?
No I think that Barbie dolls are absolutely despicable. Barbie symbolizes a lot of things that I think is wrong with society. Small girl’s plays with these dolls and therefore they grow up thinking that the perfect woman looks like a plastic doll. There is no “perfect woman” and nobody should trying to become one or to make one only causes bad things no matter how physically attractive the so called “perfect woman” might be.
What are the possible consequences of Mattel using these proportions in a popular children’s doll that is meant to portray?
This causes those(especially teenagers) who weights a little too much or are “ugly” in any other way to end up in the bottom of society and being easy subjects to bullying because of the way they look. They think that looking like a skinny plastic doll will change this and therefore they starve themselves so they become skinny like Barbie (or other icons that looks like that). This can lead to eating disorders, abuse to one-self and in worst case suicide. Also a small amount of women have the so called Barbie syndrome which means that they are willing to do almost everything(mainly plastic operations) to look exactly like a Barbie doll.
Mattel claims that: “it has never scaled Barbie’s vital statistics to real-life dimensions.” The article() goes on to say: “of those who have – usually critics or academics nobody have come up with a definitive answer as to exactly what her measurements could be.”
- Why is this?
- What degree of accuracy have been achieved while doing this investigation
- How could the method of measurement and application of measurement be improved
I think the pure reason that Mattel haven’t scaled Barbie is because they know the result will be unreal. Their purpose is to sell Barbie dolls and the present scale sells better than a real scale would do. Nobody have come up with a definitive answer because the “right” measurement for a woman is impossible to determine. Although I have used the average UK woman as a measurement then what about a Vietnamese woman that definitely don’t have as big a waist? And if you determined the average for the whole world’s women there would be a large chunk of women that is far away from that result and therefore would be unhappy with the scale. It is a discussion that cannot be won.
I think the results achieved in this investigation are as good as it gets of course I’m not a math genius in any way but the calculations are pretty simple and hard to make big mistakes in. There is two ways I could’ve improved the measurement: 1. I didn’t measure the Barbie doll or Libby myself however I got the results from a reliable newspaper that have had a math professor helping them with the mathematics in the article. 2. I didn’t include decimal points in my table, however does whether its 112.2 cm’s or 112 cm’s make a big difference to the final conclusion I think not.
Good but make sure to explain in words.
Good work Philip.
You could improve your Criterion C score by further explaining your math calculations and going deeper into the math reasoning.
You could improve your Criterion D score by using your math data to support your answers to the questions and use more examples to further explain your ideas.
Great Work! Nice use of math data to support your answer.
Use math type to put that in a proper fraction
Depends upon how big the ratio is.