???????? Assume that you are a parent of a young boy or girl.

Would you restrict the kinds of toys you buy based on considerations of appropriate body size and weight?

Why or why not? W e're not suggesting that Barbie and her entourage be thrown overboard in some modern-day version of the Boston Tea Party, or that stores be prohibited from sell- ing the popular toys. But by raising such a provocative question, we hope to encourage you to think critically about the effects that these anatomically incorrect figurines may have on the psyches of young women. Lest you think that Barbie, now more than 50 years old, is merely a quaint relic of an earlier generation, she is still the world's highest earning doll, accounting for some $1.2 billion in revenues annually (Towner, 2009). As writer Laura Vanderkam (2003) notes in her article, "Barbie and Fat as a Feminist Issue," Barbie was designed to fit the idealized male fantasy of a bosomy but impossibly thin female form, and then sold to girls who grew up wanting to look like her. Social worker Abigail Natenshon, author of When Your Child Has an Eating Disorder, argues that images of Barbie and ultrathin female models and actresses create expectations in the minds of young women about how they are supposed to look. Though many factors undoubtedly contribute to eating disorders, should parents keep Barbie at bay and not bring the doll into their homes? Or should they welcome Barbie but help their daughters see that her ultrathin form is not a female ideal, and help them understand that self- esteem should not be measured by a bathroom scale?