opinion by Maria Donnelly, photo courtesy of MCT Campus

A cover of Sports Illustrated has been released for the 50th Anniversary of the Swimsuit Edition, and the model on the cover is…wait for it…Barbie? Your eyes are not deceiving you. You just read the Barbie doll is on a cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

The children’s doll, Barbie, is going to be on the cover in a campaign called “#unapologetic.” This is saying that Barbie is not sorry for her unrealistic body image, in fact, she is flaunting it.

The cover will even say “the doll that started it all.” Started what? Eating disorders and the need for too much plastic surgery? Barbie is so unrealistic that if she was a real person she would have to crawl because her feet and ankles are so small that she could not hold her weight.

If young girls play with these dolls and think Barbie is what the ideal woman looks like, then why are they even sold? Putting Barbie on a cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition only emphasizes what men want: a fake-looking woman.

Now while there are only 1,000 issues of Barbie on the cover it still leaves a negative feeling in my stomach. The models on the cover are suppose to be real women, not a children’s toy.

The magazines have different ways to diet every other issue. This puts pressure on every young woman and even young girls to be “perfect.” This idea of perfect is unhealthy and disturbing. Just look at Barbie. She is taller and skinnier than the average person.

Artist Nickolay Lamm demonstrated the extreme difference between an average 19-year old and Barbie by creating his own average Barbie. Placing the two next to each other made the Barbie doll seem almost alien like.

These representations have a bigger impact on young girls than most people think. They are the body image young girls play with and in the end it creates a disturbing view of women’s body figures to girls of all ages.