It's no longer enough for women to be thin. Such are expectations created by the media that females now have to be thin and toned!

The ideal female body type is getting even harder to attain

By Frances Bozsik and Brooke L. Bennett
March 26, 2018

Day after day, we’re bombarded with so many media messages that rarely do we stop to think about what they’re telling us to think, do or feel.

Much has been written about the unrealistic beauty standards women have been held to. Female actresses, models and TV personalities are overwhelmingly thin, which has had a detrimental effect on the eating habits and self-esteem of countless women.

But in recent years, we’ve noticed something else: Media targeting women have featured models who are not only exceedingly thin, but also muscular.
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The birth of ‘fitspiration’ – and a new norm?

While media messages continue to encourage women to change their bodies, the platforms being used to consume media are changing. In recent years social media use has exploded. On many of these platforms, women are able to choose what content to follow and “like.” Social media sites, from Facebook to Instagram, then take this information and feed it into an algorithm, which then influences the content that’s advertised and shown to users on their feeds.

One trend that has gained traction is “fitspiration.” These are images and videos that depict women engaged in workouts or poses that highlight particular muscle groups like the abdomen or buttocks.

In promoting muscularity, these images seem to be promoting healthy exercise. But analyses of the text accompanying the images have found that they often include guilt-inducing messages that focus on body image (e.g. “Suck it up now, so you don’t have to suck it in later”). In fact, one study has shown that an overwhelming percentage (72 percent) of these posts emphasize appearance, rather than health (22 percent).

And it’s an appearance that’s not only muscular, but also thin.
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Full text at:
https://theconversation.com/the-ideal-female-body-type-is-getting-even-harder-to-attain-91373

99% of whatever the media is nattering on about can and should be ignored.

then you end with ugly abberations like this anorexic action hero


as the Tomb Raider lead.




Vikander on the other hand looks healthy fit

That's just one more argument for realism over idealism I suppose.

We expect a certain amount of idealism in entertainment.....even for the villians.

I do like the the greater inclusion and Peter Dinklage is proof of that ..if anyone has seen Avengers.

Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch) are all in excellent shape, IMO, but none of them are overly lean and "ripped".

This article from a year-and-a-half ago is quite interesting...

Which body type do men REALLY prefer? We fit 10 volunteers with eye-tracking devices to find out whether they like curvy, athletic or slim women... so who got the most attention?

* We set out to see which female body type men were most drawn to
* Fitted ten volunteers with sophisticated eye-tracking devices
* They were introduced to models with curvy, athletic and willowy figures
* Found that all three women received a similar amount of glances
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Full article at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3935212/MailOnline-discovers-body-type-men-like-best.html


And this Huffington Post article from 2014...

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You’d think that women would be experts at knowing how men want them to look, but some research proves otherwise.* Women so consistently overestimate male preferences for slenderness that it leaves some researchers puzzled. Let’s take a quick look at how academics discovered the discrepancy between what men like and what women think men like.

In the typical study,* men and women are presented with representations of the female form — from very thin to very fat (these figures are mostly line drawings, but some studies use silhouettes, illustrations or photographs). They are then asked to circle shapes that represent:

1. Their ideal body shape
2. What they believe members of the opposite sex prefer

The results? Women overestimate male preferences for slenderness. Constantly. Consistently. In nearly every study. This phenomenon baffles researchers because it’s completely at odds with the prevailing theory of how men and women pair up.

[...]

The authors of a Journal of Psychology study on sex differences in perceptions of desirable body shape were particularly blunt in their assessment: “Our data suggest that women are misinformed and exaggerate the magnitude of thinness that men desire,” write the authors, “probably as a result of promotion of thinness in women through advertising by the diet industry.”
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Full text at:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-alvear/what-types-of-bodies-do-men-prefer_b_4466912.html

I think this is appropriate:-

Luke Skywalker, 1977:


Luke Skywalker, 1996:


Dudebro was hitting the gym.

zulumoose wrote:I think this is appropriate:-

The issue we have isn't that women have unrealistic body images being presented to them, it's that we have an overwhelming emphasis placed on how women look in the first place. That's why Barbie is more of a problem than He-man. We can have someone like Mary Beard on TV talking about ancient Rome, and people start banging on about what she looks like, rather than the content of her programme, in a way that would never happen to David Attenborough.

This is typified in the sports clothing industry, incidentally. While flagship male sports clothes are overwhelmingly endorsed by successful male sports stars, the latest campaign by Adidas hired one of the Kardashians for the job. In their latest push, they have focused far more on bloggers and models than endorsing successful athletes. This emphasizes the difference in how these things are marketed to men and women. For men, it's about success and being good at the sport, like Cristiano Ronaldo, etc. For women, it's a means to getting the body that will make you attractive. There might be a certain amount of that in male media too, but for women, it's almost the only message.

Incidentally though, there has been a reported increase in low self-esteem of teenage boys too and I believe the market for muscle-building supplements has increased markedly. So perhaps He-man isn't as innocent as he might appear.

The Europeans are terrible for designing men's motorcycle jackets as if all have broad shoulders and narrow waists rather than the pear shape that is in common practice if not in vogue

I wonder if women are looking at slenderness from the fashion standpoint as opposed to nude or tight fitting appearance.

The Duchess of Cambridge is an example. She looked marvelous and healthy when at school playing sports before marriage. Rosy cheeked full thighs and nice musculature.



then she went twiggy as DIana and others did to look good in clothes



then back to looking healthy when she got preggers



Personally I think it's the fashion industry most at fault

I find female ( and male ) long distance runners grotesque even if I can admire their ability.

Vikander and few others ( Scarlett Johannsen against her body type ) strike a good balance of women's curves and athletic fitness.


but even then she gets skinnied down by advertizers



Some women have a gaunt beauty that works....Kiera Knightly and is "okay" in the athletic department ....Bend it like Beckham for instance while keeping ther winsome look.

Personally I think fashion drives the too thin parade and glad to see some of the big mags fighting back. Too many models are simply grotesque as examples of feminine ideals or beauty.