LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: Something awful is happening to the Barbies of England.  According to The      Times of London, a new study by the University of Bath has found little      girls aged seven to 11 routinely mutilate their Barbie dolls.  The      torture takes the form of scalping, decapitating, burning, breaking and      microwaving. Researchers dismiss the notion that the assaults are      initiated by chubby little girls jealous of the improbably proportioned      doll.  Instead, according to researcher Agnes Nairn, the violence could      be a reaction against consumerism.  The girls almost always talked about      having a boxful of Barbies, she said.  So to them, Barbie has come to      symbolize excess.  Barbie has become inanimate.  She has lost any      individual warmth.  The Bath researchers see the mutilation as being an      imaginative way to dispose of an excessive commodity, a kind of twisted      recycling.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: Coming up, the world's biggest foodie magazine, way bigger than Martha's      mag. Stay tuned.
Researchers at the University of Bath in England uncover a disturbing trend: young girls are decapitating and otherwise abusing Barbie dolls. One researcher says Barbie appears to have become a symbol of excess consumerism.