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For many years, Barbie dolls were considered a healthy role model for young girls: wholesome and fresh-faced, the plastic embodiment of good, clean fun. Her blonde hair and blue eyes spoke of an ideal innocence and many a happy hour was spent by little girls everywhere, brushing Barbie's hair, changing her clothes, designing new fashions for her or making up stories around her activities.

Yet as early as the 1970s, people started to question the suitability of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed ideal. After all, not all little girls are born with that colouring, and I asked my mother more than once why Barbie dolls weren't made with dark hair and brown eyes, as it seemed so unfair to me. If blonde and blue were the image of beauty, it was an image I could never hope to achieve, which would probably explain why I was given so many Sindy dolls, since they did come with brown hair and eyes.

Even the introduction of brown hair and brown eyes would not have satisfied all nay-sayers, though. What kind of role model was Barbie for the ethnic minorities of the US and UK? Where was the coloured skin, the black hair, the different eye shapes and bone structure that would allow little girls everywhere to feel their own kind of beauty was also to be celebrated and enjoyed. Why should beauty only come with blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin?

These days, however, more serious issues are at stake. Forget, for a moment, all issues of colour, whether of hair, skin or eyes, and think of her shape - long and skinny with impossibly large breasts for her body frame and body fat levels, and incapable of wearing anything but high heels. Consider that recent surveys have shown girls as young as eight worrying about their weight and developing eating disorders. If Barbie is a role model for young girls, should she really be a shape that can only be achieved through crash dieting and cosmetic surgery?

Barbie belongs to a bygone age. It is perhaps time for her to pass her crown to a more inclusive, realistic successor.

Learn more about this author, Melanie Denyer.
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