Why are healthy women considered sick, and sick women considered sexy?

Question

A normal healthy woman is 25% body fat. Nevertheless, what are desirable are semi starvation diets, liposuction, tummy tucks, emaciated super models, size zero actresses, anorexia, and bulimia. So, a normal healthy woman’s body becomes operable. Before all this became popular, corsets were used to bind a woman’s waist to a disproportionately tiny shape.

Normal healthy women’s breasts come in all different shapes and sizes, and skin color colors, normally one breast larger than the other, they drop as she ages and breast feeds, and they are highly erotically sensitive. However, what are desirable are surgical breast implants. Big, round, hard, desensitized, fake breasts. So, a normal healthy woman’s body again becomes operable. (Before surgery, bras were advertised to mold imperfect breasts into a perfectly shaped healthy breast. You have heard of Maidenform right?)

A normal healthy woman’s body grows older. Winkles, sagging skin is all a part of it. But what is desirable is to “go under the knife”, cut, scrape, peel, and inject. If that is too expensive, the “medical procedures” can be simulated with the use of with creams that come in tubes that resemble a syringe, and have been “clinically” tested by models wearing white lab coats. Therefore, once again, healthy women’s bodies are operable.

Let’s switch gears and get off the operating table, into the tanning bed. A normal healthy woman’s body comes in many different colors and shades. Fair skinned women actually say they look, pale, washed-out, like they have perpetual pneumonia, near death, and sick (all actual quotes from people on Y!A). So they tan in beds in the sun, they chemically alter their color with lotions and sprays; they wear germ-infested makeup (unless you were sterile gloves and use disposable makeup applicators and a myriad of other things, your makeup gets germ-infested) So perfectly healthy skin is bleached, baked, smothered or chemically altered to have the desirable “healthy look”.

Normal healthy foot sizes are proportionate with the body. (Food binding was once considered desirable. The tiny steps and swaying walk of the woman whose feet have been bound were intensely erotic to men at the time.). Now a days women wear high heeled shoes. Media has fun with the image of a “large” footed woman trying to squeeze into a size 7 pump. Orthopedists have warned women for years that high heels can contribute to the development of a variety of conditions from corns and calluses to hammertoes, arthritis, chronic knee pain, sprained ankles and back problems. So, healthy feet are desirable in shoes that make them unhealthy.

A normal healthy woman doesn’t smoke or do drugs. So what is desirable is, celebrity rehab, party girl, Virginia Slim 120’s, drugs to suppress the appetite and give more energy.

Are ideals about beauty really just prescribing behavior and not appearance?

Interesting how some of you equate "desire" with what a male find attractive in a woman, and not what a woman finds attractive about herself.

To: Sky Witch
You don't agree with these %'s?
Body Fat Content Chart for Women
Body Type Female
Athlete 17%
Lean 17-22%
Normal 22-25%
Above Average 25-29%
Overfat 29-35%
Obese 35+%

Sky Witch: "Are you asking this question because your not as slim as you want to be?" Yeah, it's all my fault...I'm to blame. I'm the one not walking the straight and narrow. Thanks for the sexist view point. Now let me run out and starve myself. Great for the advise. ;)

Answer 1

Good question. The answer of course is media hype and it makes even the youngest of people question their own beauty. I am sure if we lived in a place where no images of so called beauty where thrown at us 24/7.. we would all be much happier with what we look like. Love yourself and everything else will fall into place..

Answer 2

I agree with you on some levels.

However I disagree with you on the body fat %., I am 5' 7" and I wear a 2. I am not emaciated. I have had a child and am currently pregnant. My body fat is 13%. I jogged 4 miles every morning before I got pregnant again. Now I walk to stay fit. I work hard to be healthy and feel proud of my body.

No surgery and my breasts are still where they belong. I have few wrinkles because I don't tan. No tummy tuck, no lipo...all natural healthy living! I can wear a bikini after a baby and a c-section because I take pride in my health. For some of us it isn't about looking LA fake, it is about looking like I take pride in myself.

Answer 3

Loohoong question... wow. But, it's like this - in the US people are over weight compared to other countries for a few reasons - one - the food is processed, two - few actually have time to cook fresh stuff every day, three - many foods have all kinds of junk in them, like antibiotics and who knows what else, four - here, you always need to get in the car to get to the market because of a - time constraints and b - it's not a pedestrian friendly country unless you live in certain areas (like NY City and others).

I'm not sure where you live, but here's my experience. I weighed 124lbs when I went to Italy. I had to walk to school and everywhere else between bus stops and so on. I started eating 5 times a day, started my morning with a sweet pastry chocolate type thing. Never ate sweets before though. I had one can of Fanta orange - tastes better in Europe - every day. I had another chocolate pastry at 4 pm and a cappuccino. I also had a little sandwich at 11 am. Of course, I had a good lunch and I always ate dinner at 8:00pm. Most of the time it was pasta. In two-three months I lost 14 pounds without even trying. With the way I ate, you'd think I'd gain weight, but I lost it... I looked killer - which just means I looked my best - and I felt great.

Got back to the US, three years later I gained it back, and then some! I hear what you are saying, but you are looking at the surface, the symptoms of the problem. Weight gain is always related to unhealthy eating habits, or just exercise. I hate exercising, and I know I'm not alone. So I belly dance mainly because I enjoy it. If people like thin women (and men) it's because they look healthy and they inspire others. Same with the sun, the color makes one glow... but I'd never get plastic surgery or go into those stupid coffins. Give me a nude beach, and I'm there. Has to be women only though...

Answer 4

You may not want to hear this, 15% body fat for a woman is healthy not the whopping 25% you just mentioned.

EDIT: No! because 25% fat is actually too much, which includes cellulite. Are you asking this question because your not as slim as you want to be?

You`re right about size 0 being unattractive.
You forgot to add size 2.
There are some healthy size 4, and 6 women that look attractive.
Size 8, 10, and may be 12 if you`re over 6 feet tall is attractive.
I`m 5 feet 7 inches and wear a size 10.

Answer 5

How many size 0 women do you see in porn movies? Size 0 is simply NOT that attractive to guys. In contrast you see curvy women ALL THE TIME (and not just those with large breasts).

So how can the size 0 supermodel ideal be the guys' fault when they neither watch fasion shows nor CARE? These are made for WOMEN! Talk to the fashion industry making you feel like **** about your looks and making tons of money off of that!

Breast size preference? It's across the board! I personally go for D and DD, but WHATEVER size you have you will find hordes of guys for whom THAT size is the favorite (in contrast I don't see too many women fond of less than 6 inches). So what's the point of having breast surgery?

The truth of the matter is that women go on these ridiculous starvation diets to compete against OTHER WOMEN. Women do so because they are SOCIAL STATUS HOUNDDOGS! They simply cannot NOT CARE if someone makes some quip about their looks, you know, have a spine. It's the female equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses. It's really not that hard with even below average looks to find a decent guy, but that's not the point of the whole charade, is it? It's to be noticed by EVERYONE, admired, worshipped, put in the spotlight and so on... the only problem is this is seldom what people need in their lives to be happy.

Answer 6

It's mostly a matter of social norms. 500 years ago in Europe, a woman who is fat by todays standards was considered attractive, not to mention being pale, with gapped teeth and a large forehead, would be a beautiful. And what you are asking about is just what the mainstream populace finds attracive right now, no matter what sort of physical characteristics someone has, I am sure you will find people who find it attractive.

Answer 7

You are making generalizations about what is desired by all men. This is just as "dangerous" as making generalizations about making generalizations about "all women" - people are different - including men. I've noticed lately that some of the models I see are WAY too thin - its frightening, and NOT attractive. Women should have, on average, approximately 18% more body fat than men - this is biologically normal - its where the "curves" come from. Don't base your judgement on what you see in fashion magazines - that's not the same thing as reality.

BTW: bras were actually invented to hold the large "endowments" of the female opera singers - your statement is inaccurate. Also, I think implants look bizarre, and not real, or attractive.

Answer 8

In some cultures, these methods to "improve" the female body have been popularised through the media and fed by a materialistic society, whose societal standards are mainly based on the external.
In others cultures, they are insignificant or of little value to women, so this attitude or approach of "healthy women are considered sick and sick women considered sexy" is not the same everywhere, as is, for example, in the West.
Personally, I like when a woman has curves and is healthy, a natural body is appealing, sexy and beautiful, to me.

Answer 9

First, I agree completely with every one of your observations concerning the unhealthy state of society in the self-destructive behaviors it seems to encourage in women (and increasingly men as well, though it's not yet even close). You are absolutely right that these trends are disturbing and dehumanizing. And I believe that men and women, as parents, as teachers, as friends, need to encourage young women in particular, to base their value on things like character, intelligence, wit, creativity, integrity, compassion, perseverance... rather than on their ability to measure up to some asinine ideal promoted by the entertainment, fashion, and cosmetics industries, or on their ability to get the attention of the opposite sex.

However, having agreed with you so far, I look at your closing question: "Are ideals about beauty really just prescribing behavior and not appearance?"

First of all, an ideal is typically used to present an end, rather than a means to that end. (Glamorizing a lifestyle in which one can afford plastic surgery and devotes oneself to such things is one thing, glamorizing people who look a certain way, by whatever means, is another.)

Second, not all ideals are meant to prescribe means or ends. Some are just daydreams, fantasies. Some are used as a basis for comparison, but are not used to prescribe that all be judged by that standard. For example, I have certain intellectual ideals. And I do aspire to them, but I see no reason to suppose that everyone should be judged by them.

I don't think the problem is with beauty. Nor is the problem even with a particular beauty ideal, though some ideals are less realistic than others. The problem is with messed up priorities and with the inhumanity of judging people according to any one standard and not encouraging and appreciating all sorts of ways that people can find their value and self-worth.

Answer 10

Sociey/Media has given us screwed up ideas of what it is to be a beautifal woman. It starts when we are just little girls..look at Barbie, as a child we see her and play with her and want to look like her, but thats not reality. Have you ever seen average looking people on disney movies?
Women get it in their heads that one specific look is beautifal.
Its really sad actually. So many women alter themselves looking for perfection.
I myself am guilty.