When gaining weight was cool
November 28, 2011 1 Comment
Just one in a series of amazing (to these modern eyes) ads decrying skinniness and the virtues of weight gain for being an attractive woman. Pretty incredible that we’ve got from that to this:
It’s quite a tale of how society can structure our ideas of what is attractive (within a range, of course). And I still don’t get how fashion models are invariably just absurdly skinny when very few men I know actually seem to find such women attractive. Not to mention, if one buys evolutionary theories of sexual attraction (which I do), the woman in the bottom picture is going to have a lot of trouble bearing children. Anyway, do check out all the ads just to think about how far our society’s messages about women’s bodies have changed.
About Steve Greene
It’s been said that the purpose of the fashion model is not to be attractive to men, it’s to be a walking clothes hanger. I suppose this is as logical a statement as: The purpose of the sumo wrestler is not to be attractive, it’s to push others out of a ring.