Ultra-thin fashion dolls may represent a risk factor for thin-ideal internalisation and body dissatisfaction amongst young girls. We asked thirty one 5- to 9-year-old girls to engage in interactive play with commercially available dolls which were either ultra-thin (Barbie and Monster High) or represented a putative realistic childlike shape (Lottie and Dora) and to indicate their perceived own-body size and ideal body size on an interactive computer task both before and after play. There was a significant interaction between testing phase and doll group such that playing with the ultra-thin dolls led to the girls’ ‘ideal self’ becoming thinner. A further 46 girls played with the ultra-thin dolls and then played with either the same dolls again, the realistic childlike dolls, or with cars. Initial play with the ultra-thin dolls again produced a drop in perceived ideal own body size; however, no group showed any significant change in their body ideals during the additional play phase. These data indicate the potential benefit of dolls representing a realistic child body mass to young girls’ body satisfaction and do not support the hypothesis that the negative impacts of ultra-thin dolls can be directly countered by other toys.

超薄时尚娃娃可能是年轻女孩内心理想化和身体不满意的危险因素。我们让31个5到9岁的女孩与市售的玩偶进行互动玩耍，这些玩偶要么超薄（芭比娃娃和Monster High），要么代表一种假定的逼真的童趣形状（洛蒂和朵拉）），并在玩耍之前和之后在互动式计算机任务上指出他们感知到的自己的身材和理想的身材。测试阶段和玩偶组之间存在重大的互动关系，因此，玩耍超薄玩偶会使女孩的“理想自我”变瘦。另有46个女孩玩着超薄娃娃，然后又玩了同样的娃娃，逼真的童趣娃娃或汽车。最初使用超薄娃娃玩耍，再次使理想的自己的身材尺寸下降了。但是，在附加比赛阶段中，没有人的身体理想出现任何显着变化。