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They gave each kid a Barbie and a doll with real proportions. What they say next really says it all.

Barbie's supposed to be the "all-American girl" with the amazing wardrobe, perfect boyfriend, a million careers, and the dream house every girl wants. But when you compare her to the average American woman, things don't quite measure up. So an artist decided to create a doll modeled after the average American teenager, and the results are pretty amazing.

What's wrong with Barbie?

Well, for one thing, her body dimensions are completely unrealistic. For a school project on eating disorders, college student Galia Slayen took Barbie's measurements and created a life-size version that is disturbing to say the least.


Barbie's unnatural body dimensions inspired Nickolay Lamm.

Artist Nickolay Lamm had the idea to create a new doll based on the dimensions of the average American teenager. He hoped that by creating a toy with a more realistic body type, it might help make kids feel better about themselves.

He took his concept for Lammily, the "average" doll, to Kickstarter in March 2014 to crowdfund the idea. The project quickly went viral, raising over $100,000 in just a few days. In November 2014, Nickolay took one of the first finished Lammily dolls to a local elementary school to see what children would think of her in comparison to the traditional Barbie doll.

What did second-graders have to say about Lammily?

Then the kids were asked a series of questions about Lammily and Barbie.

"Which doll looks most like you?"

"What job would Lammily have?"

"What job would Barbie have?"

Pretty powerful stuff right? For me, the way they answered the jobs question really stood out to me. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think conventionally beautiful or thin women aren't smart or deserve to be judged on their looks. But these children's comments are symptomatic of the messages our society perpetuates about beauty, intelligence, and body image. And that's precisely the problem.

This just goes to show that it's so important that kids have a variety of diverse and realistic representations of people in order to develop healthy body image and self esteem. That's why it's so awesome that a doll like Lammily exists. I can only hope other toy makers will take note and we'll see more diverse and realistic dolls for our kids to play with in the near future!

Take a look at what the other second-graders had to say about Lammily along with a special behind-the-scenes Lammily photo shoot below. And if you think kids deserve more realistic dolls like Lammilly, consider sharing this post!

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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A nasty note gets a strong response.

We've all seen it while cruising for spots in a busy parking lot: A person parks their whip in a disabled spot, then they walk out of their car and look totally fine. It's enough to make you want to vomit out of anger, especially because you've been driving around for what feels like a million years trying to find a parking spot.

You're obviously not going to confront them about it because that's all sorts of uncomfortable, so you think of a better, way less ballsy approach: leaving a passive aggressive note on their car's windshield.

Satisfied, you walk back to your car feeling proud of yourself for telling that liar off and even more satisfied as you walk the additional 100 steps to get to the store from your lame parking spot all the way at the back of the lot. But did you ever stop and wonder if you told off the wrong person?

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Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

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Health

8 nontraditional empathy cards that are unlike any you've ever seen. They're perfect!

Because sincerity and real talk are important during times of medical crisis.

True compassion.

When someone you know gets seriously ill, it's not always easy to come up with the right words to say or to find the right card to give.

Emily McDowell — a former ad agency creative director and the woman behind the Los Angeles-based greeting card and textile company Emily McDowell Studio — knew all too well what it was like to be on the receiving end of uncomfortable sentiments.

At the age of 24, she was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma. She went into remission after nine months of chemo and has remained cancer-free since, but she received her fair share of misplaced, but well-meaning, wishes before that.

On her webpage introducing the awesome cards you're about to see, she shared,

"The most difficult part of my illness wasn't losing my hair, or being erroneously called 'sir' by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo. It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn't know what to say or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it."

Her experience inspired Empathy Cards — not quite "get well soon" and not quite "sympathy," they were created so "the recipients of these cards [can] feel seen, understood, and loved."

Scroll down to read these sincere, from-the-heart, and incredibly realistic sentiments.

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Health

This woman's powerful 'before and after' photos crush myths about body positivity

"Body positivity is about saying that you are more than a body and your self-worth is not reliant on your beauty."



Michelle Elman, a body positivity coach, helps people who are struggling to find confidence in their own skin.

After persevering through numerous medical conditions and surgeries in her own life, Elman realized a few years ago that body positivity wasn't just about size or weight. Things like scars, birthmarks, and anything else that makes us feel different of self-conscious have to be a part of the conversation, and she tries to make the movement accessible to everyone.

Sharing her own journey has been one of her most effective teaching tools.

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via wakaflockafloccar / TikTok

It's amazing to consider just how quickly the world has changed over the past 11 months. If you were to have told someone in February 2020 that the entire country would be on some form of lockdown, nearly everyone would be wearing a mask, and half a million people were going to die due to a virus, no one would have believed you.

Yet, here we are.

PPE masks were the last thing on Leah Holland of Georgetown, Kentucky's mind on March 4, 2020, when she got a tattoo inspired by the words of a close friend.

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