Why are rail thin models considered attractive?

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The reason is that in the 60s, Twiggy set the bar for what we see today.

Models aren't supposed to be sexually pleasing. It's not their purpose. Their purpose is not to be hot. (Runway models) They need the clothes to hang off them and sit properly. That's why they are thin. They are doing their job, and their job isn't to be attractive to men.

A lot of people really don't get this. It's not all about people's dicks in this industry.

You will notice models for this purpose. (Mens magazine models, bikini models, promo girls) Are all curvy. Their purpose is to please men.

You should study the effects on super-buff portrayals of men in the media affects men psychologically.

Yeah, but the difference is that "getting buff" is a drive to exercise more and have a more healthy body while "getting thin" is in nearly every single individual's case a drive to eat less that leads to bad eating habits in the best case scenario and an eating disorder in the worst.

But then, I guess getting buff could lead to steroid use. And both probably lead to astonishing levels of low self esteem. : ( Darn you, Hollywood!



While I do think this is a very valid point, one that I hadn't considered, I think the downside to this is that this "ideal" image, that women should be so incredibly thin, doesn't just exist in the context of models. It has poured over to our actors and musicians, to nearly every major female icon you can think of. It's about more than just wearing the clothes properly, because now all of our clothing magazine models are photoshopped, clothes and all. If it were about the hang of the clothes, there would be no need to alter the image. These are the images that are most affecting young girls. Not runway models, just regular clothing models in magazines.

This need publishers/whoever feel to photoshop already ridiculously thin girls into unnatural body proportions is a clear indication that this body image, while it may have began innocently enough in the modeling industry, has grown to affect our entire society's mindset, AND that it is progressively getting worse. A real model walking down a runway stage can only be so thin, but a photoshopped model can make young girls strive for impossible body images.

But I shouldn't victimize the modeling industry. People have had ideal body images since before the runway existed. And it's not like this era is the first in which women have destroyed their bodies for the sake of fashion. African neck rings and whalebone corsets demonstrate that clearly enough.

Just curious, are you involved in the modeling industry in any way? I don't mean to pry, it's just the way you phrased your post made it seem like you had some personal connection.

It can lead to eating disorders. Yes, that's right. Women are not the only ones that get eating disorders. Obsessively working out and worrying over food intake... etc.

Even if they don't turn to steroids, there can be psychological damage.

It's ideal because the camera adds ten pounds. The directors don't want the movie stars to look fat on camera. That's why they're all thin.
Yeah those extreme corsets and neck rings were simply gross. Don't even start me on what the chinese did to their feet.
I'm not a model either. I'm a fat lump, who at most could be a plus sized model or a face model. I simply address what the majority of the public refuse to address.

Overexercising is also unhealthy, as are those "super-buff" bodies. That low of body fat percentage can cause serious health issues.

The guys that get those kinds of bodies are actually underweight by BFP.

I know. I'm not arguing in the least that it doesn't do the same kind of damage, I'm just pointing out that at least the original suggestion is a bit more healthy. For women the suggestion is "lose weight" while for men it's "get abs/put on muscle."

How many men do you know who go on diets? I'm not arguing that there aren't any or that it's even uncommon. What I'm getting at is that when women say "I'm going on a diet" they don't mean (the majority of the time) that they're going to eat more healthy. They mean they're going to take diet pills and not eat healthier so much as just starve themselves. Going to drugs and poor eating habits is the FIRST step for women. While as, from what I understand, the first step for a guy who is feeling insecure about his body would be to join a sport or a gym or simply freak out and buy an expensive Boflex.

I'm not saying it doesn't come with it's own negative impacts that are just as significant as females have. Buying expensive home gym equipment on a spree of low self esteem is a pretty bad impact and probably a major problem among men in western societies. But it's not as physically damaging. And I'm not saying that men don't ever skip meals and go to diet pills, I'm just saying it's not the first instinct for the general male population.

But now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder how often men do the protein shake thing, and if it's comparable to diet pills in women?

The big thing is just that it seems to me that the first step for women who want to lose weight is a harmful first step, and it is such an integral part of our society. Every show you watch, some woman is going on a diet. Every show you watch, some lady is picking at her two pieces of lettuce and never eating, and girls today grow up thinking it is normal to want to go on a diet. It's now for women like shaving their legs or liking cute fuzzy things. You know you're daughter's a teenager when: she asks for a cell phone, she starts wearing make up, she talks about boys all day, she starts skipping meals.

It's just the way I see it, guys honestly want to change their body image when they feel low self esteem. I think (AND I COULD BE HORRIBLY WRONG) that guys are more logically driven and less emotionally driven when they have poor body image. They seem to actually set out to change what they don't like and set goals for themselves.

With girls, it's a habit to diet, something they'll carry with them for the rest of their lives. It's not realistic. It's not a goal. It's self-mutilation right from the first day. The goal isn't "to look like this" or "to be able to do this many reps," it's "I won't eat lunch or dinner for 3 weeks" or "I'm only going to eat celery sticks until the dance." It is in it's nature unhealthy, repetitive, and unrealistic from the very first steps, meaning that more women are actually harmed by this body image obsession and that they are harmed quicker.

But this is just all my perspective. I admit I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to men and body image, this is just my opinion and what I see.



I'm not saying it doesn't come from realistic intentions, I'm just saying that as it dilutes and works it's way into the mind of the average joe it becomes perverted from it's original intentions and has unexpected harmful effects. It's never just the models or the movie stars or the pop artists, it's the thirteen year old girl in her room looking at herself in the mirror and the twice-divorced housewife who thinks she's got to compete with these ideals for men.

Agh. I forgot about the feet thing! >_< You know what'd really be interesting to look into? Why women have consistently and in almost every society felt the need to alter their body image unnaturally and unhealthily.

Maybe its because you can make a thin model thicker to fit a larger outfit but you can't make a heavy model thinner to fit a smaller outfit.

http://www.msoe.edu/life_at_msoe/curren ... tion.shtml

http://www.psychology.org.au/publicatio ... ody_image/

They don't mention body fat percentage, probably because the BMI still reads as normal weight (or overweight) when a guy with massive muscles and no body fat checks it (body fat percentage is not used as often as it should be).

Again, the ideal BMI for attractiveness is not the rail thin models. In fact, it's what's considered "healthy" BMI, with overweight women scoring much higher on the attractiveness scale than underweight women:

http://nbr.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~plc/pdf/lancet98.pdf

Because the fashion industry want models to be human versions of this :



And the problem is that this becomes standard for women's bodies in print or film, cue stick-like actresses, maybe with fake boobs to pretend they have some body fat.

People who are naturally tall & thin - fine. But girls & women, and increasingly boys & men, are getting screwed up trying to attain a body shape that they can not get unless they sacrifice health, happiness and any real life along the way.

thank you for beating me to it

ahh same here. exactly what i was going to write.

I'd rather put on muscle than lose weight. Of course, I'm also one of those rare types who's not like everybody else. Not too much muscle. Just enough for people to keep guessing my gender.

I want my Chun Li off Street Fighter body back! I feel a bit masculine and I want enough muscle to reflect it, too. I tend to put it on my thighs, but I don't mind that.