03/25/2008
Parents' groups and healthcare experts from the United Kingdom strongly criticized a website that encourages girls aged from 9 to 16 years old to emgrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting to achieve a perfect figure.
According to the Tuesday's web edition of "The Times", the website www.missbimbo.com offers a game in which players keep a constant watch on the weight, wardrove, wealth and happiness of a virtual character to create " the hottest, coolest most famous bimbo ever".
Players compete against other children to earn virtual dollars to pay for pastic surgery, diet pills, facelifts, lingerie and fashionable nightclub outfits.
The website, created by a Nicolas Jacquat, a French man aged 23 years old, has already sparked controversy in France. It has attracted more than 200,000 players in the United Kingdom but it has also received fierce criticism by parents' groups and healthcare experts.
"This is as lethal as pro-anorexia websites", Dee Dawson, medical director of Rhodes Farm Clinic, which treats girls who suffer earting disorders, told "The Times".
Bill Hibberd, a spokesman for parents' group Parentkind condemned the website and said that "children's innocence should be protected as far as possible".
Nick Williams, from Shrewsbury and aged 42 years old, told the British newspaper that he was appalled when he saw his daughters aged 9 and 14 years old on the site.
“I noticed them looking at possible breast operations and facelifts at the game’s plastic surgery clinic. It is irresponsible of the site’s creators to be leading young girls astray. They are easily influenced at that age as to what is cool and these are not things they should be encouraged to aspire to before they are old enough to be making up their own minds,” Mr Williams told "The Times".
The final target of the missbimbo player is to cath the eye of a millionaire and get married.
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