Them Heavy Nudes

I’ve had it pointed out to me a number of times that the late 20th century, early 21st century obsession with thin females is just a cultural thing. Indeed, the favourite subjects of nudes in the renaissance were much heavier. Women of this weight were considered more attractive back then. I’ve heard it said that they were likely upper class women so they were probably by definition more beautiful (since of course the definers would have to be sympathetic to upper class women).

So maybe fashion dictates what shape of woman is more attractive. Still, to hear the people down on the skinny thing (usually for good reason, anorexia and bulimia are large problems today), you’d think that a difference in fashion would make all the difference.

So let’s try out that renaissance nude ideal. Let’s assume images like this would be as pervasive as today’s typically skinny females. Firstly, it’s probably a good idea to clothe these females for their appearance in society.

Now imagine you were a typical skinny female teenager. You would be in the majority of your age group but you would see these images all over the place. And, just as now with heavy females, you would have low self esteem because you didn’t meet that ideal. Some of these skinny females would attempt to eat more to get to the ideal. But it would be too much for some as their metabolism kept them slim. The “lucky” few that could overeat that much might very well begin thinking ‘bigger is better’ and may end up going past even the renaissance ideal.

Too heavy leads to premature deaths, just as with too skinny.

Is there no way to save our women? Or must we idealize the middle ground and only that?

It’s commonplace for people to have high metabolisms in their teens which drops off by middle age. Which results in skinny teens and renaissance women(I’m using this term to mean shape) by middle age. So for even the average woman there is a range of shapes she has. And is a range any more obvious than in pregnancy?

It seems the media needs to portray all women. A life just can’t be said to be in style or out of style.