This article, "Standards of Physical Beauty and Mental Health in children and young people in
the era of the information revolution", by A. Kholmogorova, P. Tarhanova, and O. Shalygina
discusses the role of the internet in the promotion of unrealistic beauty standards in children
and adolescents, which translates into mental health issues and the epidemic of eating
disorders. It also discusses the role of peers and family members in the internalization of body
dissatisfaction.
Research conducted by Kholmogorova et. al featuring Barbie Dolls has proven to be a source of
promoting body dissatisfaction in children. When I was younger, I watched multiple shows like
Barbie: The Series, The Winx Club, Bratz Inc, etc. All of these shows portrayed girls with
unrealistic body proportions, lifestyles, and inappropriate fashion trends which affected me
mentally. It gets more interesting when the authors conducted an experiment to 'test the
hypothesis relating to the internalization of unhealthy appearance standards'. The authors used
to pick the dolls which they found physically attractive. Five dolls were chosen for the
experiment, four of which were taken from the ones the girls often brought to school. Most of
the dolls often brought to school were white-skinned blonde Barbie or Bratz Dolls which already
gives one insight into their preferences. A China doll was also added to the 5 dolls and the
experiment took place, in which the girls chose a doll repeatedly from most preferred to least
and then gave comments on each one. The results show that, in all 23 cases, the modern
fashion dolls were chosen first and the China girl-doll never was. In fact, the China doll was
picked last by 16 out of 23 girls. The comments also implied that the girls preferred the fashion
dolls with the more sexualized image and made remarks that the China doll was well-fed,
unattractive, and had ugly fat legs. Their positive statements toward the fashion dolls could be
considered an indirect manifestation of an unhealthy standard of ideal appearance that has
formed even at preschool age' (cited in Kholmogorova et al.) explain how research such as that
conducted in the article help us to understand and advance psychology as a field.
I feel there should be more research into Beauty Standards and Society to advance Psychology
as a field. More studies and experiments should be conducted on children specially to
understand the source and how societal beauty standards can affect children mentally and
physically.