Slim waists have been the mark of attractive women throughout history, says a US scholar who has analysed thousands of ancient texts.
Dr Devendra Singh scoured references to fictional beauties from modern times back to early Indian literature.
He found that slimness was the most common term of praise from an author.
The study, published in a Royal Society journal, adds to evidence highlighting the role of the ratio between waist and hips in attracting a mate.
While female waist size is acknowledged as important in modern Western society and culture, it is not completely clear whether this has always been the case.
Some experts have suggested that at other points in history, men may have preferred larger waists.
The only remaining evidence is cultural, and Dr Singh, from the University of Texas, has spent years examining representations of women through history - in one study, he measured the waist-hip ratio of hundreds of statues from different eras.
Erotic poetry
In the most recent research, he looked at how 'attractive' women were depicted in literature, analysing more than 345,000 texts, mainly from the 16th to 18th centuries.
While most of the writings were British and American, there was a small selection of Indian and Chinese romantic and erotic poetry dating from the 1st to the 6th century of the Christian era.
The finding that the writers describe a small waist as beautiful suggests instead that this body part - a known marker of health and fertility - is a core feature of feminine beauty that transcends ethnic differences and cultures
Dr Devendra Singh
University of Texas
While the most-often mentioned feature was the breasts, waistlines were mentioned 66 times, with a slim waist predominantly linked to attractiveness.
There was trend for slightly larger women in the 17th and 18th centuries - a trend typified by the paintings of Rubens - but demand for a slimmer waist was generally constant throughout the centuries.
Dr Singh said: "The common historical assumption in the social sciences has been that the standards of beauty are arbitrary, solely culturally determined and in the eye of the beholder.
"The finding that the writers describe a small waist as beautiful suggests instead that this body part - a known marker of health and fertility - is a core feature of feminine beauty that transcends ethnic differences and cultures."
Fertility test
Other studies have found a link between a woman's waist to hip ratio and her fertility, offering some explanation as to why, alongside breasts, waist size is viewed as important by men selecting a mate.
Levels of the female sex hormone oestrogen around puberty are thought to be important in setting a woman's body shape into adulthood.
Dr Piers Cornelissen, a psychologist at York University, has carried out his own experiments designed to test the theory.
He says that the sexual attractiveness of the curve between slim waist and hips may be due to a liking for well-fed women rather than a subtle sign of fertility.
His work uses mathematical equations to separate the amount of the 'curve' between waist and hip which is due to simple fat deposition, and that due to other factors such as bone structure and the effects of sex hormones.
He said: "When we break apart that 'curviness', it is almost impossible to find an effect for waist-hip ratio that is independent of effects such as body fat percentage."
source:: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6247625.stm
Saturday, March 17, 2007
This will help you
Single leg squat
Start by balancing on your right foot, leg straight but not locked. To help balance, bend your left leg slightly and shift your left thigh back so that it is slightly behind your hip.Hold bent elbows by your sides, hands at waist level. Push hips back as you slowly bend right knee and lower body until knee is at about a 90-degree angle. Reach both arms straight in front of your hips. Hold, then squeeze right buttocks to straighten up. Pull elbows back as you stand, squeezing shoulder blades together. Repeat, then switch sides.
V squeeze
Lie on your back and extend your legs straight up, feet above your hips. Open your legs in a straddle position. Place your hands inside your inner thighs. As you exhale, push your hands out against your thighs while you try to squeeze your legs together. Close your legs, then open in a V shape again and repeat, each time adding resistance to the movement by pushing your hands against your legs.
Single leg deadlift
Stand on left leg and press right toe to floor. Rest hands on back. Squeeze buttocks and with a straight back, lean forward to about a 45-degree angle. Pull belly button in to support back. Pushing right toe into floor for resistance, squeeze buttocks to return to upright position . Repeat, then switch sides.
Start by balancing on your right foot, leg straight but not locked. To help balance, bend your left leg slightly and shift your left thigh back so that it is slightly behind your hip.Hold bent elbows by your sides, hands at waist level. Push hips back as you slowly bend right knee and lower body until knee is at about a 90-degree angle. Reach both arms straight in front of your hips. Hold, then squeeze right buttocks to straighten up. Pull elbows back as you stand, squeezing shoulder blades together. Repeat, then switch sides.
V squeeze
Lie on your back and extend your legs straight up, feet above your hips. Open your legs in a straddle position. Place your hands inside your inner thighs. As you exhale, push your hands out against your thighs while you try to squeeze your legs together. Close your legs, then open in a V shape again and repeat, each time adding resistance to the movement by pushing your hands against your legs.
Single leg deadlift
Stand on left leg and press right toe to floor. Rest hands on back. Squeeze buttocks and with a straight back, lean forward to about a 45-degree angle. Pull belly button in to support back. Pushing right toe into floor for resistance, squeeze buttocks to return to upright position . Repeat, then switch sides.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Slim waist is eternal standard of feminine beauty, say scientists
PARIS - For instance, in Victorian England, a tiny, puckered mouth was the zenith of pulchritude.
Today, the rosebud look has been replaced by what has been called the trout look, as women in Western cultures strive to make their mouths look as wide and full-lipped as possible.
In many societies, the focus of secondary erogenous zones has roamed over ankles, necks and knees and makeup and hairstyles change according to the mode.
The desired female morphology has shifted too, driven in part by prosperity and the social advancement of women. In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe was the template of feminine beauty; today, she would be encouraged to sign up at Weightwatchers.
So it would seem that the "beauty standard" does not exist -- that there is no eternal benchmark, only a chaotically whizzing merry-go-round.
Not so for evolutionary psychologists.
For them, fashion is a fluffy cover for a force that is deeper, remorseless and unchanging, as old and enduring as our genes: the Darwinian drive of survival and genetic fitness.
In an innovative test of these rival hypotheses, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and at Harvard University trawled through three centuries of English-language literature and through three Asian literary classics dating back nearly two thousand years.
Their goal: Which parts of the woman's body were praised as beautiful by writers across the ages?
Their sources were a website, Literature Online, for English literature from the 16th, 17th and 18th century; Chinese sixth dynasty palace poetry (from the fourth to the sixth century AD) and two ancient Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, from the first to third century AD.
Breasts, buttocks and thighs -- the primary erogenous zones -- predictably featured large in these descriptions.
But a slim waist trumped them all.
In English literature, a glowing description of a narrow waist (a waist "as little as a wand", "beholden to her lovely waist" and so on) showed up 65 times.
That compared to 16 references for romantic description of breasts, 12 for thighs and a mere two apiece for hips and buttocks.
Before anyone cries fattism, the literature was studded with romantic tributes to plumpness but relatively few to slimness.
But what counted, plump woman or slim, was the relativeness narrowness of the waist. There was not a single evocation of beauty which said the object of veneration had a bulging tummy.
In the Asian works, the slim waist was even more adored, although there was no flattering reference to plump beauty.
Narrow waistedness scored a massive 35 references in the two Indian epics, while the other body parts garnered a total of 26. In the Chinese poetry, the narrow waist was evoked 17 times, while breasts, buttocks, hips and thighs got zero, and there was a solitary romantic reference to a woman's legs.
The study, which appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal, says these references show that a slim waist is an object of desire that spans time and cultures.
Why so?
The answer, suggest the authors, is that a narrow waist is a sign of strong health and fertility. Men instinctively assess a woman's waist for its potential for successful reproduction and thus furthering their own genes.
Modern research has established a link between abdominal obesity and decreased oestrogen, reduced fecundity and increased risk of major diseases.
But "even without the benefit of modern medical knowledge, both British and Asian writers intuited the biological link between health and beauty," say authors, Devendra Singh, Peter Renn and Adrian Singh.
"In spite of variation in the description of beauty, the marker of health and fertility -- a small waist -- has always been an invariant symbol of feminine beauty."
I find it interesting how the writer of the article makes one feeble attempt to clarify that it's the relative slimness of the waist (to the rest of the body) that matters, then spends the rest of the article yammering on about "small waists".
imo, the interpretation is wrong: it's not the waist, even though that's what draws the attention; it's the proportion between waist and hip that gives that sexy look. marilyn monroe, blithely dismissed by saying today she'd be encouraged to seek Weight Watchers, is still an icon of feminine sexuality, as is Mae West and other such zaftig silver screen goddesses. it wasn't because they had "small waists" - at 36 inches, MM certainly didn't have one! - but because their waists tapered attractively to a larger hip diameter.
That's why corsets are so effective - although the waist LOOKS tiny (and may even be measurably so), it's the slope from waist to hip that creates the desired effect. if the waist were 24 and the hips were 30, even such a small waist would not be considered sexy by most men (globally speaking). it's not a small waist that biology decrees as indicative of reproductive potential, but big hips! big-hipped women tend to be sexually mature and also tend not to die in childbirth. if "small waists" were the marker of sexual attraction, then pre-pubescent girls would be the sexual target, not mature women.
Today, the rosebud look has been replaced by what has been called the trout look, as women in Western cultures strive to make their mouths look as wide and full-lipped as possible.
In many societies, the focus of secondary erogenous zones has roamed over ankles, necks and knees and makeup and hairstyles change according to the mode.
The desired female morphology has shifted too, driven in part by prosperity and the social advancement of women. In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe was the template of feminine beauty; today, she would be encouraged to sign up at Weightwatchers.
So it would seem that the "beauty standard" does not exist -- that there is no eternal benchmark, only a chaotically whizzing merry-go-round.
Not so for evolutionary psychologists.
For them, fashion is a fluffy cover for a force that is deeper, remorseless and unchanging, as old and enduring as our genes: the Darwinian drive of survival and genetic fitness.
In an innovative test of these rival hypotheses, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and at Harvard University trawled through three centuries of English-language literature and through three Asian literary classics dating back nearly two thousand years.
Their goal: Which parts of the woman's body were praised as beautiful by writers across the ages?
Their sources were a website, Literature Online, for English literature from the 16th, 17th and 18th century; Chinese sixth dynasty palace poetry (from the fourth to the sixth century AD) and two ancient Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, from the first to third century AD.
Breasts, buttocks and thighs -- the primary erogenous zones -- predictably featured large in these descriptions.
But a slim waist trumped them all.
In English literature, a glowing description of a narrow waist (a waist "as little as a wand", "beholden to her lovely waist" and so on) showed up 65 times.
That compared to 16 references for romantic description of breasts, 12 for thighs and a mere two apiece for hips and buttocks.
Before anyone cries fattism, the literature was studded with romantic tributes to plumpness but relatively few to slimness.
But what counted, plump woman or slim, was the relativeness narrowness of the waist. There was not a single evocation of beauty which said the object of veneration had a bulging tummy.
In the Asian works, the slim waist was even more adored, although there was no flattering reference to plump beauty.
Narrow waistedness scored a massive 35 references in the two Indian epics, while the other body parts garnered a total of 26. In the Chinese poetry, the narrow waist was evoked 17 times, while breasts, buttocks, hips and thighs got zero, and there was a solitary romantic reference to a woman's legs.
The study, which appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal, says these references show that a slim waist is an object of desire that spans time and cultures.
Why so?
The answer, suggest the authors, is that a narrow waist is a sign of strong health and fertility. Men instinctively assess a woman's waist for its potential for successful reproduction and thus furthering their own genes.
Modern research has established a link between abdominal obesity and decreased oestrogen, reduced fecundity and increased risk of major diseases.
But "even without the benefit of modern medical knowledge, both British and Asian writers intuited the biological link between health and beauty," say authors, Devendra Singh, Peter Renn and Adrian Singh.
"In spite of variation in the description of beauty, the marker of health and fertility -- a small waist -- has always been an invariant symbol of feminine beauty."
I find it interesting how the writer of the article makes one feeble attempt to clarify that it's the relative slimness of the waist (to the rest of the body) that matters, then spends the rest of the article yammering on about "small waists".
imo, the interpretation is wrong: it's not the waist, even though that's what draws the attention; it's the proportion between waist and hip that gives that sexy look. marilyn monroe, blithely dismissed by saying today she'd be encouraged to seek Weight Watchers, is still an icon of feminine sexuality, as is Mae West and other such zaftig silver screen goddesses. it wasn't because they had "small waists" - at 36 inches, MM certainly didn't have one! - but because their waists tapered attractively to a larger hip diameter.
That's why corsets are so effective - although the waist LOOKS tiny (and may even be measurably so), it's the slope from waist to hip that creates the desired effect. if the waist were 24 and the hips were 30, even such a small waist would not be considered sexy by most men (globally speaking). it's not a small waist that biology decrees as indicative of reproductive potential, but big hips! big-hipped women tend to be sexually mature and also tend not to die in childbirth. if "small waists" were the marker of sexual attraction, then pre-pubescent girls would be the sexual target, not mature women.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)