Jessica Alba or Nigella Lawson Type Curvy Body Preferred to Twiggy Type Straight Body
Celebrity Chef Nigella Lawson - The Body Most Coveted by British Women
The Curvy and Hot Jessica Alba
More and more women are looking for curvy bodies like that of Jessica Alba and Salma Hayek rather than straight and thin bodies like Twiggy, as an outcome to their weight loss efforts. Skinny bodies may have been a goal for many women before this, due to the obsession with the weight scales.
The only way to measure success with the weight scales is a lower reading at the end. But a lower reading on the weight scales does not necessarily result in a more shapely body.
The obsession has been due largely to women not knowing any other way of measuring progress of weight loss. This even though body fat measurements and others have been around for some time.
Men and both women alike appreciate the curvy and shapely bodies of women like Nigella Lawson, Jessica Alba, Salma Hayek or Catherine Zeta Jones. Yet many do not realize that the weight scales is not the best tool to attain such a curvy body.
Model Twiggy - Inspiration for a straight body
Marilyn Monroe at the end of hourglass era
Women’s Obsession with “Size Zero” or “Size 10″
The hourglass body shapes were “in” during the 60s and were flaunted by stars like Marilyn Monroe.
Subsequently, the hourglass body shapes were “out” and the straight/skinny bodies as paraded by models like Twiggy were “in”. A lot of the hype of the shapeless bodies of models in the 80s and 90s was propagated by the mass media, the advertising and the fashion industries.
As the saying goes, if a lie is repeated enough times, people start believing it to be the truth. This fueled the massive interest in the “size zero” culture.
Believe it or not, this has resulted in women dieting and starving themselves to fit a certain clothing size. Women always had pride in saying, “I am a size 10″ or ” I am a size zero”.
Results of a Recent British Survey Shows Women Wanting Hourglass Shapes
Laura Bryant from the Kellogg company that carried out the survey was quoted as saying: “The report shows that woman’s attitudes to slimming over the last 50 years have changed along with their figures. It seems British women have lost their waists but now they are demanding it back. They are more concerned about getting a curvy hourglass shape like their grandmothers instead of being the perfect size 10. This shows a marked shift in attitude from the 80’s and 90’s. Back then, success and failure of any slimming effort was bench marked against fitting into certain sized clothes”. British women want a body like that of Nigella Lawson.
Timeless Beauties Such as Venus de Milo Have Hourglass Shapes
Venus de Milo has a WHR of 0.7
Catherine Zeta Jones
Timeless beauties for ages had very shapely and curvy bodies. Believe it or not, even the Venus de Milo was sculpted with an hourglass shape! Incidentally, the Venus de Milo was sculpted some time between 130 and 100 BC and is believed to depict the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
The problem has always been the weight scales. Women were sold on the idea that the only attractive body was a “size 10″ or a “size zero”. Some women were built with bigger frames and could not possibly fit into a “size 10″ or a “size 0″. What did they do? They starved and dieted to shrink their bodies to fit the mould. The act of starving one’s self to fit a certain dress size is no different from the ancient Chinese act of “foot binding”. The weight scales were used as a means of measuring this shrinkage.
The problem with the weight scales is that it can’t measure how shapely your body is. For a more detailed understanding of this, please refer our earlier article entitled “Why Weight Scales and BMI Can’t Measure a Beautiful Body”.
Jessica Alba, Sophia Loren, Salma Hayek and Other Curvaceous Woman Have WHR of 0.7
Voluptuous Salma Hayek
Audrey Hepburn
The Waist to Hip Ratio (WHR) is used to measure the extent of the hourglass shape of a woman’s body. A WHR of 0.7 is considered as perfection. As mentioned in that article, women like Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Jessica Alba, Salma Hayek and Catherine Zeta Jones, have a WHR close to 0.7. This includes the Venus de Milo!
A woman still needs to lose weight to attain an hourglass shape but it must be Correct Weight Loss. This is weight loss that moves a woman closer to the WHR of 0.7. It requires losing fat while toning and shaping the muscles. The conventional way of just dropping digits on the weight scales won’t do anymore!
I have always thought that curvy bodies are prettier…the very skinny bodies may be okay for some people but in my experience is not realistic for the majority of us!!
Thanks for your feedback. I wonder why women relentlessly go after a skinnier body via starvation and dieting?
I think it’s because what we see society has done about showing what beauty is and it pre conditions us to some extent on what we think is beautiful or attractive. Think about this: Back in Marilyn Monroe’s day women were curvy and thick looking and now alot of them are too thin and straight. I think it also depends on the individual because we are all different and going to be attracted to different people.
Well, the thing is we need to feel comfortable with the way we look. Only when we feel good about the way we look, will we feel sexy. However, personally I feel a curvy body accentuates the body parts, which is actually quite sexy. A woman will naturally feel sexy looking at her own curves. No matter what the in thing, most people get attracted to curves. Jennifer Lopez, Bipasha Basu (the hindi actress)and many others ooze with sexuality because of their curves and people simply love a body like that. A woman with a straight body has an advantage of being able to wear anything. She may even have a beautiful face, hair or skin. But imagine that same woman with some curves and a dress that accentuates those parts.. wow! Theres no point in wanting to diet just to look like a stick. It shouldn’t matter what the society thinks. After all, being skinny wont suit everyone. It can make one look frail. There’s nothing more to look at other than a pretty face. Lets look curvy and toned! That should be it.
TONED!
Thanks for the comments Rekha. I agree with you 100%. You put it very succinctly when you said “a curvy body accentuates the body parts..”. How apt. if only more women would accept this thinking and abandon dieting and starving all together. A woman’s body should not be starved. It should be sculpted with the right exercises and healthy food.
It’s always not right to look into someone else’s shape & figure because if that so,you’ll be forcing your body to adopt which isn’t natural at all.The bottomline is to be happy to whichever you are happy & comfortable at.Our mindset has always been on trend that most famous people created.Whether you are naturally skinny or voluptous,what’s really important is the fact that you can keep it for a long period of time.Just do your best to eat a healthy balanced diet while exercising regularly will surely bring out the best shape hidden in you.
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Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately its the straight skinny bodies that are un-natural. These are obtained by starving and dieting. If one lives a healthy life with correct exercise and a healthy diet, the hour glass shape is inevitable. Why is it that the hour glass shape was more prevalent in our great grand mothers than it is now? As you said Jean, just eat healthy and exercise correctly and the best shape in you would appear.
Saying that straight, skinny bodies are unnatural is absolute bullshit. Many thin women, including me, have the body shape they do because they are born that way, not because of anorexia. The whole “real women have curves” idea alienates women who are naturally skinny and makes them feel like less of a woman. It’s just as bad as discrimination against curvy women. I have been pressured to gain weight and falsely accused of being anorexic, and it was awful. I even succumbed to their pressure in the past and overate to try to gain weight, and I couldn’t, because my body is the way it’s meant to be.
Thank you for your reply. I am sorry that you feel that way. The article was not meant to discriminate but instead inform that if someone is overweight and is planning to shed some pounds, then that person could choose between a skinny or a shapely body as the end result. Both are achievable. I can understand that some women have tremendously high metabolic rates and find it very difficult to put on weight. But the topic of this blog is weight loss and not weight gain although weight gain could also be a very interesting topic for discussion. Its possible that lots of women with weight problems out there will call you lucky as you are gifted with a skinny body. Anyway all the best and thanks for your valuable feedback.
So nice to see how we progressed as a society when we continue to commodify a woman’s body deeming it ‘fashionable’ or ‘not’.
The difference between an hourglass or stick figure is the amount of bodyfat and whether the woman has a different hormonal balance from the process of giving birth.
And I should remind all you critics that the reason you are alive is the result of the miraculous processes that occur within a woman’s body no matter what shape it is.
Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, vanity is the single most dominating driver of peoples actions. And the top on the list is how our body looks. So its not that we have digressed in society because we can now verbalize clearly what should be the goal of a weight loss program. An hour glass shape is the natural shape of a woman if she exercises and eats healthy. The difference between an hourglass figure and a “stick” is not dependent on the amount of fat one carries. Instead it depends on how much of muscle mass one carries. It would be wholly disappointing if an hourglass figure depends on fat storage as that is something that we have no control over. But how we tone our body and where we sculpt our muscles are 100% in our control. The “stick” is a result of starvation which is un-natural. I value your feedback and look forward to more comments from you.
I think at the end of the day we have to admit, everyone wants to look good. Sometimes when we are too lazy or do not make time to do something to make ourselves look better, we give lots of lame reasons and excuses. We envy people who work at it. We expect people to accept us the way we are when we ourselves are not too happy with the way we look. If we are to accept everything the way it is, then we shouldn’t even be frequenting salons and beauty parlours or even enhance our skin and appearance with beauty products and stuff. We should be leaving everything to God and nature. But God has given us a chance to live and to live the way we want and He wants us all to be happy doing the things we do.. let’s live it ‘beautifully’ in EVERY WAY we can. After all, it’s all about eating healthy, being healthy, looking good and feeling good. When this happens, we are happier people. And happier people are more productive in every way.. We give everything including love, so freely coz we care enough to love ourselves..
You have summarized it so aptly. We need to love ourselves first before we can love others. I would love to hear views about an earlier article published along these lines;
http://correct-weight-loss.net/2009/04/21/at-which-level-of-love-are-you-operating-it-could-impact-your-weight-loss-efforts/