{"id":27790,"date":"2025-05-14T18:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T18:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27790"},"modified":"2025-05-14T18:29:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T18:29:18","slug":"research-study-shows-barbies-feet-have-gotten-flatter-over-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27790","title":{"rendered":"Research Study Shows Barbie\u2019s Feet Have Gotten Flatter Over Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Researchers in Australia found that the doll\u2019s feet have, over time, gone from arched to flat \u2014 a shift that correlates with each Barbie\u2019s designated career or hobby.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a scene from the 2023 movie \u201cBarbie\u201d in which arched feet step out of high heels onto the ground. And stay arched. It took the actress Margot Robbie eight takes<\/a> to perfect the trick and it set off a social media frenzy<\/a> almost akin to a collective gasp.<\/p>\n

For a group of podiatrists in Melbourne, Australia, that scene became fodder for a group chat \u2014 the angle of that arch, the weight on the balls of her feet. When Barbie\u2019s heels eventually touched the ground, those podiatrists saw the beginnings of a research paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were talking about how nice it was to finally see Barbie in flat shoes and to see Barbie making all of these different shoe choices based on what she had to do in her day,\u201d Cylie Williams, an academic podiatrist at Monash University, said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

It seemed, to the group of researchers, that Barbie\u2019s empowerment was tied to the structure of her feet, in the same way that everything about Barbie \u2014 her body shape, her skin color, her lifestyle choices \u2014 are tied to the Everywoman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe went, \u2018Do you reckon that\u2019s actually a thing?\u2019\u201d Dr. Williams said. \u201cAnd we are researchers \u2014 we\u2019re curious \u2014 so we kind of went, \u2018Let\u2019s have a look at this, this could be fun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust so we\u2019re clear,\u201d she added, \u201cwe are serious researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Researchers carefully measured the angle of the feet of Barbies produced over the years. Only 40 percent of dolls produced since 2020 have had the extreme heel arch.<\/span>Cylie Williams<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Researchers in Australia found that the doll\u2019s feet have, over time, gone from arched to flat \u2014 a shift that correlates with each Barbie\u2019s designated career or hobby.There\u2019s a scene from the 2023 movie \u201cBarbie\u201d in which arched feet step out of high heels onto the ground. And stay arched. It took the actress Margot Robbie eight takes to perfect the trick and it set off a social media frenzy almost akin to a collective gasp.For a group of podiatrists in Melbourne, Australia, that scene became fodder for a group chat \u2014 the angle of that arch, the weight on the balls of her feet. When Barbie\u2019s heels eventually touched the ground, those podiatrists saw the beginnings of a research paper.\u201cWe were talking about how nice it was to finally see Barbie in flat shoes and to see Barbie making all of these different shoe choices based on what she had to do in her day,\u201d Cylie Williams, an academic podiatrist at Monash University, said in a phone interview.It seemed, to the group of researchers, that Barbie\u2019s empowerment was tied to the structure of her feet, in the same way that everything about Barbie \u2014 her body shape, her skin color, her lifestyle choices \u2014 are tied to the Everywoman.\u201cWe went, \u2018Do you reckon that\u2019s actually a thing?\u2019\u201d Dr. Williams said. \u201cAnd we are researchers \u2014 we\u2019re curious \u2014 so we kind of went, \u2018Let\u2019s have a look at this, this could be fun.\u2019\u201d\u201cJust so we\u2019re clear,\u201d she added, \u201cwe are serious researchers.\u201dResearchers carefully measured the angle of the feet of Barbies produced over the years. Only 40 percent of dolls produced since 2020 have had the extreme heel arch.Cylie WilliamsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27792,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27793,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27790\/revisions\/27793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}