Mystery of Christina Hendrick’s disappearing curves as she’s reduced to a size-zero doll

Voluptuous actress Christina Hendricks has been immortalised by the makers of Barbie – as a stick-thin, size-zero doll.

And the move has been criticised by a leading dietician as another alarming example of children being encouraged to conform to ideals which do not exist.

Miss Hendricks, 35 – who plays sassy secretary Joan Harris in the hit TV series Mad Men – was recently described by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone as being a role model and having the ‘ideal shape’ that British women should aspire to.

Spot the difference: Christina Hendricks and a stick-thin doll version of her



But instead of promoting the fuller, hour-glass figure of size 14 Miss Hendricks, Mattel has produced a flat-chested and skinny-hipped doll version of her TV character.

Dietician Sion Porter, an expert in healthy eating at the British Dietetic Association, said: ‘Lynne Featherstone is absolutely right to highlight Miss Hendricks as an example of a perfectly healthy body shape and weight, and she looks stunning.

'There is no reason a size 14 can’t be healthy and attractive, so it’s sad and alarming that toy manufacturers can’t represent this.

‘When young girls aspire to look like magazine photographs, or in this case toys, they are trying to achieve the impossible because the images have been heavily airbrushed.’

A spokesman for Mattel said the proportions were not intended to represent Miss Hendricks’s real-life figure. He said: ‘The Mad Men dolls are styled to capture the aesthetics of the show.’