“Public health” academia is a broad church. On one hand, there are lemon-sucking puritans who can’t bear to see people enjoying themselves. You will be familiar with them from their attempts to stamp out smoking, drinking and tasty food. There is another faction, though, that is driven by juvenile anti-capitalism and hates all commercial activities, especially advertising.

It is often difficult to distinguish the two, partly because a lot of “public health” academics fit in the middle of the Venn diagram, and partly because both factions spend their time trying to suppress the commercial activity of “unhealthy commodity industries”. 

Every now again, the anti-capitalist fanatics come out with something so outrageous that they blow their cover. This week the British Medical Journal (BMJ) beclowned itself by giving a pulpit to some people who identify as “experts” getting upset about the toy company Mattel giving free Barbie and Ken dolls to school children. Mark Petticrew of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine called the scheme, which has been rolled out to 700 schools, “alarming”. Colleague May van Schalkwyk said: 

Commercial entities like Mattel are not experts in children’s health or education, they are experts in selling products to maximise profits. The Mattel materials are heavily branded — why should children be exposed to this type of stealth marketing?

If distributing heavily branded products is stealth marketing, one wonders what normal marketing would look like. If we accept that Mattel are not experts in children’s health or education, one has to ask what exactly Ms. van Schalkwyk is an expert in. She describes her research as being about “how the activities of corporate actors influence ideas, knowledge, public discourse, and policy debates”. So far in her short career in “public health”, she has written about gambling, “Big Alcohol”, Brexit, tobacco and e-cigarettes. Naturally, she is opposed to them all, but she is breaking new ground in discussing the dangers of Barbie dolls. 

What are these dangers? Ms van Schalkwyk points to a study which found that girls who play with Mrs Potato Head “reported a smaller difference between future possible careers for themselves as compared to boys” than those who played with Barbie. She also points to a study which suggested that playing with Barbie was associated with “a preference for a thin body, but with no immediate effect on body image.” 

That study concluded that “the long-term impact of Barbie exposure on body image remains unknown”, but the BMJ acknowledges that there is evidence that playing with dolls is beneficial to social and cognitive development, including one study which concluded that: “Doll play may provide a unique opportunity for children to practice social interactions important for developing social-emotional skills, such as empathy.”

It’s not a health or medical issue, let alone hygiene or tropical medicine

No doubt research will continue to develop in this scintillating field of human endeavour but, really, who cares? It’s not a health or medical issue, let alone an issue of hygiene or tropical medicine. Kids like playing with toys, it’s probably good for them and it’s nice that Mattel is giving away free dolls. The only teacher the BMJ quotes in its “investigation” said of the giveaway, which comes with a lesson plan: “We are in a relatively socially deprived area, and many of our children don’t get the opportunity to engage in speaking and listening activities about subjects such as these.” According to the BMJ, “she said that the children enjoyed the sessions, which helped them engage in positive discussions about friendship, social skills, empathy, stereotypes, disabilities, and kindness.”

All of this sounds entirely positive unless you’re the kind of person who instinctively objects to companies “selling products to maximise profits” — in which case you should probably keep your opinions to yourself.