body shape

Negative body image is an epidemic--plain and simple.

The psychology of weight and perception of "ideal" has always fascinated me and continues to evolve, for better or for worse.

Obviously, women have different perceptions of what constitutes "ideal," and there is an equally disparate range of what women are happy with.

The Urban Dictionary defines the slang word 'cankle' as:

It's a clever word, but what comes after isn't so funny!

Being hyped as the most important weight loss book of the year isn't an easy accolade to live up to. You never really know how much of the buzz is based on marketing hype or reputation for past works or both. Well, I'm here to tell you with a great deal of confidence - The Body Fat Solution did not disappoint.

Do you get all excited when you spot a dimple of cellulite on a actresses body? Do you go all giddy when celebrity x gains 0.34 of an inch on their thighs?

Of course not. You're not that petty are you?

Thousands of others, however, get off on criticizing everyone else's body.

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt is one of the few to respond to the critics, and her response is worth a read.

A recent study of body dissatisfaction among college students yielded some surprising contrasts: half of the underweight women thought they were fine the way they were, or wanted to lose even more weight. Yet most of the overweight students were shooting for weights that were still too high to be considered healthy.

And what about normal weight women? Care to guess what percentage of them were unhappy with their current weight?

Once upon a time, art imitated life. Then, life imitated art. Now it seems that life draws its very reason for existence from image-based media.

Florence studios have a series of figurines that allude to famous art icons. What's different is that all the figurines have (shall-we-say) high BMI's.

New research appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that strength training can reduce body fat, and attenuate abdominal fat gain.

The research applies to overweight or obese premenopausal women and was conducted over two years.

So what kind of exercise were these women doing?

Very few of us women seem to feel completely happy with our bodies. Despite all the helpful pep talks we get about how "every woman is beautiful in her own way," we know, deep down, that it isn't really true. Right? There really are "attractive" and "unattractive" body types, and we could all use some help. So here’s how to get that figure any woman would want:

First you take an ounce and a half of oyl of foxes, oyl of lillies, and capons grease…

Oh, wait. This isn’t the 17th Century.

The quotes from these vintage ads (from the 1940s) proclaim: “Every woman has a figure problem!”

These old-fashioned ads (from Corsietere) show great similarities to today's marketing mix. This advertising brainwashing (complete with ludicrous before and after images) assured women that they were not thin enough or appealing enough for the world . Sound familiar?

Muscles. Hot or not?

UCLA professor David Frederick and colleagues have asked: Why is Muscularity Sexy? Conclusion: [...] these studies suggest that men’s physical features are related not only to women’s expressed preferences for mates but also to men’s and women’s past mate choices and sex behaviors.

One of the studies interviewed 99 male undergraduates about their sexual histories, and, to be honest - can you really believe they didn't "talk up" their exploits?

How has body shape changed during the last century? What were the popular and glamorized body shapes of the day?

Forgive the double entendre.

When it comes to the hourglass figure - many women pursue it, and it seems that men pursue women with it.

Psychologists at the University of Texas (obviously with way too much time on their hands) have reviewed hundreds of years worth of literature and concluded: Men lust after slender-waisted women.

Apparently it all comes down to Waist-to-Hip ratio. A slender waist is seen as "a core feature of feminine beauty that transcends ethnic-morphological differences".

Two BBC radio stations recently surveyed 25,000 men and women, asking them how they felt about their bodies (average age was 17-34). The results were somewhat discouraging:

Body fat has a mind of its own. It appears where it wants to, and seems to disappear (under great duress) from all the wrong places. Is there any rhyme or reason to fat distribution?

Here is a complete guide to body fat distribution.

Despite the popularity of Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat, many people now realize that actually the French are fat. But did you know that the French are getting taller as well? The average French woman today is just over 5 feet 3 inches tall and 137.6 pounds, compared to 5 feet 2 1/2 inches tall and 133.6 pounds in 1970. Women's waistlines in particular have thickened.