Photo Courtesy of Flickr/fabpop online

The new Barbie doll will be more realistic than the Barbies of the past.

Nickolay Lamm, a graphic designer from Pittsburgh, is determined to widen the narrow scope of what is considered beautiful– to do so, he has built a “normal Barbie,” who looks like an everyday teenage girl, as opposed to a perky blonde supermodel. Lamm, who feels that “reality can be beautiful,” even created stickers so your Lammily (the name of Lamm’s company) doll can have stretch marks, scrapes and acne, hoping these will make her look even more like a real girl.

Lamm, who found inspiration for the doll from his own physical insecurities, feels that children and adults alike will benefit from the dolls’ more realistic appearances. He says that people often try to escape reality by watching movies, using phones and playing games, and hopes to remind them of the beauty of real life and convey to them that reality is all we truly have.

A more average Ken doll is also in the works, and may come with a larger gut, chest hair and dirt stains.

Not everyone feels the Lammily doll is serving the positive purpose it’s meant to, though. According to the Huffington Post, the doll is still much thinner and “sexier” than the average teen girl, and adding a few removable scrapes and scars doesn’t help much.

“Packaging [cellulite and scar stickers] only works to enforce their status as imperfections… and controllable ones at that… despite being peddled as normalized and body-positive– [the Lammily doll] ultimately ascribes to a very narrow definition of beauty,” said Nikki Gloudeman in her article from Huffington Post.

Lamm’s intentions are good, but according to Huffington Post, creating another thin, conventionally attractive doll has done very little to further the body positivity of real girls.

Senior Diana Atanesyan disagrees- while she recognizes that the Lammly has not satisfied everyone’s interest in creating a perfectly healthy and realistic doll, she feels the Lammily doll has taken a great first stride in ending the unhealthy body image promoted by the media. Atanesyan realizes there is room for improvement, but points out that Lammily is, after all, only a doll.

“Girls are taught to look and act a certain way, whether directly or through unrealistically perfect dolls… I think it’s a lot healthier for girls to be surrounded by realistic depictions of women… Barbie is meant to be physical perfection, Lammily is a real person that kids can relate to,” said Atanesyan.

Sophomore Will Canavan said the Lammily doll is perfectly realistic and achieves its overall purpose.

“The doll is refreshing… its effect on young kids will be a good one because it is more realistic and really promotes a normal body image,” said Canavan.

Despite backlash against the doll being still too “sexy” and unrealistic, many feel very positively about Lammily, and believe the doll achieves its purpose of promoting body positivity, realistic expectations and a wider definition of beauty.