Body Images: a comparative approach

Whether you look like one of these

or like this Venus figurine

No one has the right to make you feel bad about how you look or tell you that you are imperfect in any way.

Fashionable trends will go and come and it makes little sense to follow them blindly. However, it’s important to realize that current western ideas of beauty as thin and slender with a flat belly was not always considered beautiful in the past, and not even among different societies today. In many societies, women who have a bigger derrieres and wider hips are found to be more attractive than those without. Also, many people have also been known to prefer at least a fashionable little bulge on the belly and waist, rather than flat or six-pack abs.

Your body type will be considered ‘perfect’ somewhere in the world, even if it is not in your own community – and this I strongly believe is true for each and every person in this world. Therefore, it is no surprise to learn that if a man or woman wants to be an actor or actress, they need only look for the right entertainment industry in the right part of the world to join. This is why so many foreigners with ‘outside’ roots are becoming commonplace in Bollywood – the Indian film industry – and achieving recognition here.

This brings me to something I remember from my Introductory Anthropology classes back in my undergraduate days. It was relatively early on that we were introduced to the existence of groups like the feeder communities in the United States. Personally I find feederism really interesting because their ideas of beauty and erotica are often at complete odds with our skinny-conscious society. Unless someone does not wish to be fed or gain weight, and is being pressured or force-fed against their will, I see no problem in this kind of lifestyle. Read this article for more on feeders. Comparatively, this kind of force and pressure is not uncommon in our society either, with such eating disorders as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa affecting so many people, which are in complete contrast to the ideologies of feeders and feedees.

Let me know what you think!