NH: The equation of thinness with beauty is a particularly American thing.
It's now becoming pervasive world over because most of the world has tv's
and Hollywood gets everywhere. As someone on this post said,
historically, and still in most of the rest of the world, being fat means
that you have the money to purchase enough to eat--it's a positive thing.
It's been inverted in North America though, which is one of (if not the?)
richest countries in the world, with an economy centred around mass
production, even mass production of food. (I once read that in North
America, it used to be that most people did enough physical labour in the
course of each day to maintain a basic level of fitness. Now, almost
no-one does. So it's not just food, it's that we now do far less labour.)
In America, it's possible to be quite poor and still be fat. So having
the time and the resources to work at being thin has become the ideal of
beauty.
-nalo
On Sun, 25 May 1997, Sean Johnston wrote:
> >
> >
> >In much of the world fatness is still a way of identifying the wealthy. It
> >means (sorry) that they are Americans.
> >
> >Farah
>
> Farah,
> No offense taken, but...huh?
>
> -Sean
>
"I recommend biting off more than you can chew,
To anyone."
-Alanis Morissette
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