Becky Picha
30 October 2014
The
Evolution of the Ideal Body
The
article “What Does Friend Mean Now?” was written by Joseph P. Kahn in 2011,
which was first published the Boston Globe. It explains how the meaning of the
word “friend” has drastically changed through the years. Previously, the term
“friend” was used to describe the few people one had close relationships with
and see often. But recently, “friend” has described much more. Almost everyone
nowadays has social media with hundreds of friends on Facebook and kids are
taught at a young age that everyone is a friend.
Relating
fitness to how the meaning of ‘friend’ has changed, I realized that the meaning
of the ideal body for women has changed as well. The photo on the top of the
article on the right shows the ideal body in 1900, called the “Gibson girl” and
the photo on the left shows the ideal body in 2000, a Victoria’s Secret model (Bahadur).
It is really obvious that there has been a huge change in what women want to
look like. In 100 years, the ideal body has gotten thinner and thinner, and
currently models and actresses are smaller than the average American woman. In
fact, the gap between the size of models and the average woman has grown larger
at an extremely fast rate.
Centuries
ago, being full figured was a symbol of wealth and beauty, but more currently, both
men and women strive to be thin (Edmonds). Many times, people go to extremes to
be thin, such as eating disorders and plastic surgery. People want to look like
a model, and as the difference between the bodies of average women and models
continue to grow, the amount of things done to try to look like them grows as
well. In 2010, $10.1 billion was spent on cosmetic procedures, which was a 1.2
percent increase from the previous year.
If
someone with the “ideal” body in the 1900’s tried to get a job in the modeling
business today, they would definitely not get the job and mere thought of them
thinking they could be a model would be strange. It would be the same reaction
if it was 1900 and a woman with a body like a Victoria’s Secret Angel wanted to
be a model. It’s clear that the standards for women to look a certain way has
changed, and personally I do not think it has changed for the better.
Works Cited
Bahadur, Nina. "It's Amazing How Much The
'Perfect Body' Has Changed In 100 Years." The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 05 Feb. 2014. Web. 30
Oct. 2014.
Edmonds, Molly. "10 Ways the Definition of Beauty
Has Changed." HowStuffWorks.
N.p., 27 July 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Kahn, Joseph P. "What Does "Friend"
Mean Now?" America Now: Short
Readings from Recent Periodicals. Ed. Robert Atwan. 10th ed. Boston:
Bedford/St Martin's, 2013. 379-82. Print.
I liked this blog post overall. I liked how you brought up ideal body images from past decades it made it easier to relate. I also liked how you talked about how body image was a symbol of wealth. I liked how you talked about modeling because I feel like it's such a common thing in today's society. I feel like I can relate to this because everyone always talks about how skinny I am but it's not because I try to be it's because I am a swimmer and so I have the ability to burn thousands of calories a day. Overall I liked and felt this article easy to relate to. I feel like this mostly appeals to girls not guys though. I really enjoyed this blog post overall.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I did not see a connection between how the term friend has changed vs. how the ideal body of a woman has changed, I still found the article very interesting to read. It would have been really interesting to see actual numbers, like body sizes and heights and weights of models back then set against models now. I was intrigued by the plastic surgery amount, that is a lot of money to spend on something so trivial. This was a fun blog to read and you did a very good job by adding the personal touch at the end of it.
ReplyDeleteI think this reading must have been a challenge for you to connect fitness with friends. Overall, I think connecting the change of meaning in friend to the change of meaning of what an ideal women's body is clever. I never thought of it that way, that the more meat or "average" your body looked meant you came from wealth. Which makes sense because if you had meat you had money for food. I really enjoyed this piece.
ReplyDelete