Who wants to bet that the fashion industry will adopt the following guidelines voluntarily?

The U.S. National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) has responded to Gisele Bundchen’s statement blaming families for anorexia.  In short, Bundchen is ignorant; the culprits are some combination of 1) genetic factors, 2) personality traits such as obsessionality and perfectionist attitudes, which are themselves related to genetics, 3) environmental factors such as the high status of skinny high-fashion models and 4) various problems that an individual may be facing, such that women at risk for developing anorexia often come to believe that the attainment of perfection will make their problems go away, and conveniently find “perfection” in the skinniness of high-fashion models, thanks to the high status of high-fashion models.

New York State Assemblyman Jose Rivera has proposed that body weight standards be established for under-18 models and child performers in the entertainment industry.  Hopefully, the proposal will lead to rules with an enforcement provision rather than mere suggestions/guidelines only.

In a new study where 3-D physiques of European women in color were rated for attractiveness by Europeans, the attractiveness ratings were related to percentage body fat, breast size relative to waist size, and skin tone, but not cardiovascular fitness, and male and female raters judged attractiveness similarly(1; pdf).

She is the second fashion model that I have added to the attractive women section.  She is not very feminine, but I don't hear heterosexual men complaining.  Women like her would be closer to the norm rather than the rare exception among fashion models if the top ranks of the fashion business were not dominated by...(you know which group).

She has been added to the attractive women section.

Are families to blame for anorexia?  Yes, according to Gisele Bundchen!  Previously, she criticized skinny fashion models for not eating enough, and glossed over the fact that high-fashion models are required by fashion designers to maintain low body weight, i.e., fashion designers deserve the blame.

A number of women would be interested in what waist-hip proportions are “ideal” or the most attractive as far as heterosexual men are concerned.  The purpose of this entry is to show that it is meaningful to talk about an attractive range, albeit narrow, of waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) – as far as the preferences of most people [in Western societies] are concerned – rather than a strict value.  In some comparisons, a woman with a slightly thicker waist/higher WHR would be more appealing.  This entry should once again help make the case that beauty does not lie in some simple rules of thumb.

A study by Dixson et al.(1) reported that when shown line drawings of women from the back, varying in waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs) from 0.5 to 1.0, rural men in Bakossiland, Cameroon, most often preferred a WHR of 0.8.

A study by Dixson et al.(1) reported that when shown line drawings of women from the back, varying in waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs) from 0.5 to 1.0, Chinese men (college students) most often preferred a WHR of 0.6.