At an estimated 6 feet tall and 110 pounds, she'd be severely underweight with a BMI of 14.9, but that didn't stop fashion bigwig Christian Louboutin from calling Barbie "fat" -- well, her ankles, anyway. And she'll need to do something about those cankles -- which are currently 22 millimeters in diameter -- if she wants to score herself a pair of Louboutin's famous red-soled stilettos. Louboutin has insisted on having the iconic doll's legs re-shaped by the shoe designer before he'll unveil his special collection -- designed exclusively for her -- next year.

But like a good sport, Barbie's not offended. "My dear friend Christian loves my ankles. It was my arch that he wanted to give a little lift to, so I can rock those high heels," she said in a recent statement issued by her manufacturer, Mattel.

According to Urban Dictionary, a cankle is "an ankle of a fat person in which the ankle and the calf appear seamless." She's definitely not fat, but come to think of it, she doesn't really have much separation between her foot and calf. What do you think? Does Barbie have cankles?

Louboutin's not the only designer in hot water -- Karl Lagerfeld says that no one wants to see curvy models.

More lead paint news this week, as a doll toy purchased at a Toys "R" Us locations was found to be tainted with 10 times the legally-allowed lead level.

Not only that, but in addition to the Curious George doll, vinyl lunch boxes and backpacks were also found to contain high amounts of lead as well. Do we have another toy recall headed our collective way soon? Who knows.

Marvel Entertainment had made the Curious George doll, which Sassafras Enterprises had made the tainted lunchboxes and backpacks. The Center for Environmental Health went as far as giving notice to Sassafras already that it was violating a 1986 California law that prohibits exposing consumers to carcinogens without warning.

Will that do the trick, or are more lead-based paint recalls on the horizon? My guess is that these items were made in China like all the others. What is is with lead being in so many toys these days? Talk about being incredibly annoying to millions of parents.

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It looks like China is using Mattel's apology to reinforce the feeling around the world that Chinese exports are generally safe. While I applaud the effort, it's hard to see how China sees exports as being safe.

While trust may change on that topic after a period of time without some kind of product recall, the fact is that too many recalls have come out of that country in the last year. Albeit, these were from American firms many of the time, but the actual product maker or producer was a Chinese company or firm.

Are both American companies and Chinese exporters to blame here? You bet -- and it will take a while for the trust level to be built back up in countries around the world.

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The Chinese state media again is stating that toy company Mattel is to blame for the recent toy recall that has risen awareness about the quality of Chinese-produced goods.

While I don't dispute that Mattel is negligent here, the primary blame is with the Chinese suppliers who can't seem to keep dangerous cross-contamination of chemicals from a plethora of consumer products sold around the world.

China's deft reaction this week reminds me of a wolverine backed into a corner -- it's striking back as it is provoked. Still, these Chinese companies must not have stringent quality control at all, but then again, neither does Mattel apparently.

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Although the massive toy recall currently in progress from the likes of Fisher Price and Mattel may be swaying some parents from buying toys at the moment, these problems still won't end up deterring many of them from buying similar toys (according to parental feedback this week).

Why, you may ask? Well, the parents in question say that American companies that branded and marketed the toys were as much to blame as the Chinese factories which created them. I agree with this -- if lead paint was put on toys in Chinese factories and the actual companies had no outside quality control to check for things like this, they are just as much to blame.

Will you stop buying toys for your kids? Probably not -- but is it time to actually research toys and buy ones from known good sources (non-Chinese), even if it means fewer toys (non-mainstream, most likely) but with higher quality?

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Time to check those toy boxes!

Mattel recently announced a recall that affected nearly 1 million of their toys. The toys, which were manufactured between April 19 and July 6th of this year, may contain lead paint and children may be exposed to the lead when they play with the toys and put them in their mouths. The toys include popular Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, and Go, Diego, Go toys.

The mistake was made in a vendor plant in China, a plant that Mattel says they've been working for for nearly 15 years. If you have own one of these toys manufactured during the recall dates, Mattel says you should take the toy from your child and that consumers will be given a voucher to replace the recalled products. For more information, and for a complete list of products, visit CPSC website here.

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