beauty

Western European Society got its idea about thin, pale, blonde girls being the epitome of beauty and fashion from Sir Thomas Kyd, if I'm remebering my Shakespeare class correctly. Shakespeare countered this notion with his Dark Lady poems, but Kyd's work about a fair haired maiden that he fell in love with at church were already sweeping Europe. And we haven't changed our perceptions since then.
I'm sure that everyone has heard at some point that in midieval times, heavier set women were the height of attractiveness. This Kyd poetry series from the 1500's was a real turning point for us.
I'm sure, also, that people know that super models are atypically structured. They have musculo-skeletal frames that are very diminuative, and different from the majority of the population. That's what made them famous. Although, most of them still abuse drugs and alcohol to have the figure that they do, and most of them have eating disorders. That is why the international modeling rules changed last year, because too many 14 year old and younger girls were literally starving to death to stay on the runway. Now girls of that age are banned from modeling.
This all translates into college aged girls, high school girls, and now introducing middle school aged girls with eating disorders. Preposterous as it may sound, people are so dissatisfied with their appearance, and in fact value their appearance so much that they are willing to starve themselves for the sake of "looking good".
Of course, being of the college age, I see it all the time. I worry because I am aware of the physical problems that this behavior causes in people, which is more and more severe each year closer to thirty. Spanning from heart conditions to esophogeal damage...and the fact that people my age should be more than aware of the threats connected to eating disorders, but that they starve themselves anyway is a disappointing, and somewhat frightening fact about maybe only the people I know. I have a feeling it's a little more widespread in our country than that.
One of my best friends was a vietnam veteran. He really respected the way that I eat. He actully complimented me in that: he said that I eat like a European. Though fast food is on the rise in Europe, people in Europe have a relationship with their food, that I think Americans need to learn from.
There aren't waif thin people in Western Europe, but they certainly don't have the trouble with obesity that we do. They also don't seem to have the kinds of stigma attached to body shape that America does. They eat when they're hungry, but they appreciate the food, and nine times out of ten it's raw, fresh, healthy, blah blah blah. Food has a cultural value, and people place personal value on their relationship to foods there. Not like here, whatever is fast, cheap, and fills the stomach. Oh, yes, and it has to taste good, and by good, I mean super greasy and covered in salt in a way that will give me a heart attack before I finish the meal.
In summation, the American relationship to food needs some serious modification. The American ideal body type, could also stand to be reevaluated. Or at least, maybe we could try not to put so much emphasis on it. In 20 years, who's going to care what size jeans you can squeeze your ass into?