I’m living proof that a toy can be toxic to young girls

Of cOurse, a toy can be toxic. I’m living proof. I’ve just looked at this doctored photo of myself for a few seconds and I feel sick. I’d planned a sandwich for lunch, but that’s off, obviously. And I’m a grown woman.

There I was deludedly thinking I was thin, with Meghan Markle’s calves and Audrey Hepburn’s waist. I’m a size 8, after all. I barely eat. I run and walk every single day.

But now, seeing myself morphed into Barbie, it’s clear I’m simply not trying hard enough. I need to be tortured on a medieval rack and stretched. This is what it’s like to be front row at a fashion show, all over again. You think you’re fine until you find yourself filing out behind Karlie Kloss. suddenly, you’re impossibly old, badly dressed and horribly, disgustingly obese.

No wonder then that this new study reveals that girls only need to play with Barbie once to feel less happy about their bodies.

As a child, I never had a Barbie: perhaps my parents disapproved, or she was too expensive. Instead, aged six or seven, I begged for the British version, sindy. she too had blonde hair, a big head and saucer eyes, but she was flat-chested. To me she was more wholesome, less sexual, not quite as relentlessly sunny.

I have memories of lifting her carefully out of her cellophane box on christmas Day. she came with the outfit my mum had chosen, as I was pony mad: fawn jodhpurs, a gingham blouse, tiny rubber riding boots, and a black velvet t riding hat that would d never go on, as her r head was too big.

I remember undressing - her: how smooth her body felt, how flawless. I wanted to o be sindy for ever. I never wanted to grow pubic hair or breasts.

It’s telling that I became anorexic aged d 11, and had a breast st reduction aged 29, 9, both of which prove e that aged five, six, x, seven, your future is already set in stone.

Aged 62 now, my body is smooth, hairless. rnd I own a pony, and spend every day in fawn jodhpurs and a black velvet cap . . .