Really, the only thing that looks slightly different here from today’s “ideal” is the fairly thick thighs (though with the length of her legs, it’s still in good proportion) and arms. Not sure if it’s flab or muscle…

It is ink.  This woman is a drawing.

And as to how I know? Giantism, for example, is bad for life expectancy. If Adele is just genetically off the charts in what qualifies as healthy BMI, that’s still not something you should ASPIRE to. I want to be like Mike, but if I grew three feet while keeping my current weight, I would have a serious problem. And vice versa.

This illustrated woman has essentially the same proportions as the average thin attractive women of today (not the model types). She has more fat and/or muscle, but it’s distributed perfectly – which is not something most people are gifted with. Most people, I think, actually have good proportions… but you have to figure out how much muscle and fat you need to maintain your best look, and then you have to figure out how to maintain it, and that’s very difficult. I hate my proportions, personally, and can only imagine how bad it is for women (once I learned how clothes should fit on me to look the best, I realized I need almost everything off-the-rack to be altered to fit – my proportions truly are off).

One of the key areas for an attractive woman, I think, is the hip, ass, and thigh region. Many people with a little bit of extra fat have an excess of it collecting in those areas (for whatever reasons… not a biologist or doctor here), throwing off the nice proportions. These people probably weigh about the same as this woman would, but don’t look the same because of the distribution.

Really, the only thing that looks slightly different here from today’s “ideal” is the fairly thick thighs (though with the length of her legs, it’s still in good proportion) and arms. Not sure if it’s flab or muscle, but if her exercise and diet was the same as people today she’d probably have less-fat arms and thighs. You rarely, if ever, will see someone today with thighs that look like that to go with an upper body shaped like that. It’d certainly catch my eye if I saw someone like this.

There’s a website where you can search photos (user-submitted) of real women by their size. I tried figuring out how the measurements here might translate (with the help of commenters above mentioning clothing sizes) and found just one photo of someone with fairly similar proportions – and they’re quite attractive.

So basically you just went off on your diatribe about fat chicks blah blah blah on a post about skinny chicks.

Please don’t project your narcissistic drama onto fat people. They have enough problems. And before you get on your high horse with me about it. I’m a 5’10 gluten-free vegan who wears a size 4, weighs under 130, and does some kind of dance or yoga every day. I am, also, one who also has an auto-immune disorder that may cause her to blimp out for a bit and and grow a disfiguring goiter until medication brings the symptoms under control, allowing sanctimonious idiots to preach at her about her health when they don’t know a thing about it.

Please stop dividing all of America into the two conflicting parts of your own psyche. There is a lot more going on with America’s problem with obesity than women not “aspiring” to be thin and being lazy about themselves. It’s very sad to read things like this.

Most of us are sexy in some way or another. That said, I’d love it if we could get past this absurd idealization for a particular period.  Now people are into all sorts of things, surely our idea of attraction will also become more diverse?  Has it become more diverse?  Mass media conceptions of attractive certainly haven’t.