JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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Not at all, as the article below discusses in detail.
Women's Body Image and BMI: 100 Years in the US
And men have different preferences from each other; we dont all think alike.
Some Men Prefer Fat Women
Ideal to real: What the 'perfect' body really looks like for men and women
The "ideal" female on the left -- bigger breasts, obviously -- compared to the "average" female, based on BMI.
Why Stressed-Out Men Prefer Heavier Women | TIME.com
Women's Body Image and BMI: 100 Years in the US
By the end of the 20th century, female beauty standards in America have remained unrealistic and extreme, with popular images of thinness being more out-of-reach for the average woman than ever before. This trend has been reflected in many first-world nations, although women in certain developing nations lack this widespread anxiety over their weight.
The chief contributors to negative self-image and weight dissatisfaction are media images promoting thinness, peer pressure, and personal levels of anxiety or depression – conditions which can be exacerbated by continued unsuccessful pursuit of an unattainable goal. The result has been a marked rise in weight anxieties in even very young girls, as well as an increase in dieting from a young age, and even potentially deadly eating disorders such as anorexia. While the severity of this problem is receiving increasing attention in the public sphere, these anxieties remain so common as to be “normal” among women.
The chief contributors to negative self-image and weight dissatisfaction are media images promoting thinness, peer pressure, and personal levels of anxiety or depression – conditions which can be exacerbated by continued unsuccessful pursuit of an unattainable goal. The result has been a marked rise in weight anxieties in even very young girls, as well as an increase in dieting from a young age, and even potentially deadly eating disorders such as anorexia. While the severity of this problem is receiving increasing attention in the public sphere, these anxieties remain so common as to be “normal” among women.
And men have different preferences from each other; we dont all think alike.
Some Men Prefer Fat Women
Describe the perfect woman. Is she blonde, or brunette? Petite, or tall? Slender — or fat?
For a certain subset of the male population — referred to in the scientific community as "fat admirers" — overweight women are the ideal. And a recent study, published in The Journal of Sex Research, finds that not only do FAs prefer overweight women, but that they also find a wider range of body sizes attractive than other men do.
The study asked two groups of men — those who were scouted at FA events, and those who did not identify with the subculture — to rate black-and-white photographs of 10 female body types. Both groups were asked which figure they desired the most, as well as the largest and thinnest figures that they found attractive.
The FAs were most attracted to the photo of a woman with a body mass index of 29.24. BMIs are computed by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a body mass index of 25 to 29.9 qualifies a person as overweight, while those who are obese have a BMI of 30 or higher. For example, a 5’6” woman at 155 pounds is overweight, and is obese at 190 pounds. (To find your BMI using metric measurements, use the CDC’s calculator.
Furthermore, the study found that FAs considered a wider range of figures to be appealing, including those of two emaciated women (with BMIs lower than 15).
Viren Swami, a psychology professor at England's University of Westminster and a lead researcher on the study, says that these findings suggest a rejection of the "sociocultural norms of attractiveness."
"Most [FAs] understand that their ideals of beauty are not 'mainstream,' but I don't think it's really perceived as something rebellious," Swami told LiveScience. "'Natural' is a word that often crept up in my conversations with FAs, i.e., they viewed their preferences as normal; it was just that mainstream society didn't 'accept' those ideals."
For a certain subset of the male population — referred to in the scientific community as "fat admirers" — overweight women are the ideal. And a recent study, published in The Journal of Sex Research, finds that not only do FAs prefer overweight women, but that they also find a wider range of body sizes attractive than other men do.
The study asked two groups of men — those who were scouted at FA events, and those who did not identify with the subculture — to rate black-and-white photographs of 10 female body types. Both groups were asked which figure they desired the most, as well as the largest and thinnest figures that they found attractive.
The FAs were most attracted to the photo of a woman with a body mass index of 29.24. BMIs are computed by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a body mass index of 25 to 29.9 qualifies a person as overweight, while those who are obese have a BMI of 30 or higher. For example, a 5’6” woman at 155 pounds is overweight, and is obese at 190 pounds. (To find your BMI using metric measurements, use the CDC’s calculator.
Furthermore, the study found that FAs considered a wider range of figures to be appealing, including those of two emaciated women (with BMIs lower than 15).
Viren Swami, a psychology professor at England's University of Westminster and a lead researcher on the study, says that these findings suggest a rejection of the "sociocultural norms of attractiveness."
"Most [FAs] understand that their ideals of beauty are not 'mainstream,' but I don't think it's really perceived as something rebellious," Swami told LiveScience. "'Natural' is a word that often crept up in my conversations with FAs, i.e., they viewed their preferences as normal; it was just that mainstream society didn't 'accept' those ideals."
Ideal to real: What the 'perfect' body really looks like for men and women
British researchers gave young heterosexual Caucasian men and women a chance to design ideal bodies, one for themselves and one for a hypothetical mate. The study used 40 female and 40 male heterosexuals with an average age of just over 19 — university students, mainly. They presented each person with 3-D computer representations of bodies. Each participant could adjust the images in many different ways until they arrived at the ideal body for their gender, and the ideal body of the other gender. These ideals were then compared with the participants’ own bodies.
The results of this study revealed a couple of surprises. First, the ideals ran across genders. Men and women barely differed in their opinion of what an ideal body looked like, whether the ideal was for a male or a female.
Essentially, the male ideal is an inverted pyramid with broad shoulders and small waist, while the female ideal is an hourglass with a small waist-to-hip ratio. Second, both women and men preferred slimmer female bodies than the real female participants possessed.
The twist: women preferred a larger bust size than the men did.
“We were a bit surprised,” senior author of the paper, Martin Tovée a professor at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University told TODAY via email. “It is possible that the female participants were exaggerating a feature they felt was particularly important.”
Men “also exaggerated their upper body shape…relative to the ideal set by women,” said Tovée.
Some experts believe we evolved these "ideal" preferences as signals of health and fertility. Others believe that culture, especially media representations, has more influence than genes or evolution.
"What struck me from these illustrations is that even though the ideal bodies are 'ideal,' and are the type of bodies people spend hours in the gym for, the bodies based on the participants of the study still look good," said Lamm, who developed the 3-D illustrations for TODAY.
"Part of the reason for the divide between ideal and reality may be due to what we see in the media," added Lamm, who recently completed a crowdfunding campaign to create a new doll, Lammily, based on the average measurements of a 19-year-old American woman.
The results of this study revealed a couple of surprises. First, the ideals ran across genders. Men and women barely differed in their opinion of what an ideal body looked like, whether the ideal was for a male or a female.
Essentially, the male ideal is an inverted pyramid with broad shoulders and small waist, while the female ideal is an hourglass with a small waist-to-hip ratio. Second, both women and men preferred slimmer female bodies than the real female participants possessed.
The twist: women preferred a larger bust size than the men did.
“We were a bit surprised,” senior author of the paper, Martin Tovée a professor at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University told TODAY via email. “It is possible that the female participants were exaggerating a feature they felt was particularly important.”
Men “also exaggerated their upper body shape…relative to the ideal set by women,” said Tovée.
Some experts believe we evolved these "ideal" preferences as signals of health and fertility. Others believe that culture, especially media representations, has more influence than genes or evolution.
"What struck me from these illustrations is that even though the ideal bodies are 'ideal,' and are the type of bodies people spend hours in the gym for, the bodies based on the participants of the study still look good," said Lamm, who developed the 3-D illustrations for TODAY.
"Part of the reason for the divide between ideal and reality may be due to what we see in the media," added Lamm, who recently completed a crowdfunding campaign to create a new doll, Lammily, based on the average measurements of a 19-year-old American woman.
The "ideal" female on the left -- bigger breasts, obviously -- compared to the "average" female, based on BMI.
Why Stressed-Out Men Prefer Heavier Women | TIME.com
Most men prefer leggy and lean women, Gisele Bündchen lookalikes, right? Not necessarily. In fact, the body type that a man finds attractive can change depending on his environment and circumstances, a new study finds: when under stress, for instance, men prefer heavier women.
The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, reports that when men were placed in stressful situations, then asked to rate the attractiveness of women of varying body sizes, they tended to prefer beefier frames, compared with unstressed men whose tastes skewed thinner.
“This suggests that our body size preferences are not innate, but are flexible,” said study co-author Martin Tovée of Newcastle University in the U.K., in an email, noting that they may be influenced by our particular environment and resources.
The findings fall in line with evolutionary theories that suggest when resources are scarce or unpredictable, a woman’s thin physique may signal illness, frailty and the inability to reproduce. Indeed, Tovée and colleague Viren Swami of the University of Westminster in London have previously found that men under trying conditions — like extreme hunger — tend to rate heavier women as more attractive. The researchers suggest also that underlying biological mechanisms, such as blood sugar and hormone levels, are major players in how we perceive our surroundings.
“Our work in parts of Malaysia and Africa has shown that in poorer environments where resources are scarce, people prefer a heavy body in a potential partner,” said Tovée. “If you live in an environment where food is scarce, being heavier means you have fat stored up as a buffer against a potential food reduction in the future, and that you must be higher social status to afford the food in the first place. Both of these are attractive qualities in a partner in those circumstances.”
Moving from a low-resource environment to a richer one, like the U.K. or the U.S., can cause a shift in these preferences, says Tovée, and to test the theory further, the researchers recruited some male volunteers and manipulated their stress levels — a key problem for people living in poor environments.
The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, reports that when men were placed in stressful situations, then asked to rate the attractiveness of women of varying body sizes, they tended to prefer beefier frames, compared with unstressed men whose tastes skewed thinner.
“This suggests that our body size preferences are not innate, but are flexible,” said study co-author Martin Tovée of Newcastle University in the U.K., in an email, noting that they may be influenced by our particular environment and resources.
The findings fall in line with evolutionary theories that suggest when resources are scarce or unpredictable, a woman’s thin physique may signal illness, frailty and the inability to reproduce. Indeed, Tovée and colleague Viren Swami of the University of Westminster in London have previously found that men under trying conditions — like extreme hunger — tend to rate heavier women as more attractive. The researchers suggest also that underlying biological mechanisms, such as blood sugar and hormone levels, are major players in how we perceive our surroundings.
“Our work in parts of Malaysia and Africa has shown that in poorer environments where resources are scarce, people prefer a heavy body in a potential partner,” said Tovée. “If you live in an environment where food is scarce, being heavier means you have fat stored up as a buffer against a potential food reduction in the future, and that you must be higher social status to afford the food in the first place. Both of these are attractive qualities in a partner in those circumstances.”
Moving from a low-resource environment to a richer one, like the U.K. or the U.S., can cause a shift in these preferences, says Tovée, and to test the theory further, the researchers recruited some male volunteers and manipulated their stress levels — a key problem for people living in poor environments.
