How real are Barbie & Ken?
Toronto Star headline:
Life-size Barbie’s Shocking Dimensions:
Would She Be Anorexic?
Women’s Health article:
You Won't Believe What This
Woman Says She Does to Look
Like a Barbie
Ukrainian model Valeria Lukyanova became
crazy-famous in 2012 for undergoing insane
amounts of plastic surgery to look like a live
version of a Barbie doll. But now, the model
claims she has a new strategy for maintaining
her shape: She recently told the International
Business Times that she practices a diet called
Breatharianism. How it works: Rather than
eating and drinking food and water (like a
human), you "live off of" air and light,
otherwise thought to be "cosmo micro-food"
absorbed from the environment.
Women’s Health:
What Would Barbie Look Like with
Real-Woman Proportions?
This "average" Barbie is anything but
Which one is “normal”?
We can answer this with z-scores.
Remember …
Several researchers have
come up with different
measurements Barbie would
have if she were a full-sized
woman. Here is numbers
from the University of
Northern Iowa Department of
Mathematics:
Convert Barbie’s chest, waist,
and hips to z-scores.
If women’s measurements
were normally distributed,
would you expect many
women to have a 16-inch
waist?
The Ken doll is also not
shaped like a normal adult
man.
The z-scores for Ken’s chest,
waist, and hips are
-3.4, -2.5, and -3.2
respectively.
Find the measurements of a
full-size Ken.