Bigger Girls: Are They More Popular than We Think?

The Cool wrote: »

Let's face it, physically attractive traits like toned legs or perky boobs aren't going to be sticking with us for very long anyway, in 20 years it'll be their personality that makes you love them, not how they look.

I know this is mentioned quite a lot, but I don't buy it myself. It depends how you look after yourself and that goes for men and women. If you have a good physique at 20, there's few enough reasons that you can't have pretty much that same physique at 40 or even 50 for that matter(one of the best looking figures I ever got up close and personal with was a woman of 42). Hell I'm the same clothes size now in my late 40's I was at 18 and it was hardly much effort on my part, other than if I noticed my jeans were tightening up I'd dial back on the sweets.

The reasons that are there? IMHO for men they have few to none other than eating too much, not moving enough. Men should with little enough effort keep the bod they had at 20 all the way to 50, if not 60. Women have more physical and hormonal challenges like menopause and pregnancy. Some women's appetites and bodies never go back to pre pregnancy levels. I've read somewhere it's a genetic thing. You see similar with some women on hormonal contraception. Some have no changes in body shape/size, while others can balloon. If it's down to the pill, it's hardly a willpower issue anyway.

Shenshen wrote: »

I'd be interested in that study, if you could find it.

I'll try and dig it up for you. I have the links somewhere.

I've no doubt that waist sizes have grown, but I have to wonder about what impact fashion physically had on this.
100 years ago, women would have been regularly wearing corsets, as would a good few men. And even in the 1950s, girdles and the like would have forced an hourglass figure on women - we are a little bit like trees in that sense, I suspect. If you put pressure on one area, the fat deposits more easily in another.

Certainly the era of corsets would have to be excluded, but by the flapper 20's corsets were out, they made a bit of a comeback later on, but the trend towards fatter bellies(and larger breasts) was pretty clear.

But I'm sure that this probably isn't the only factor. Maybe physical excercise plays a role as well? 100 years ago there would have been very few women who would excercise on a regular basis, so their muscles may have developed differently?

Oh I'm sure activity patterns would be in play. Plus with a shop like Harrods class distinctions would be in play too. IIRC a number of other studies backed up the Harrods one, namely that people are taller and carrying more weight amidships.

On the activity front, while there are many women going to gyms etc today, women, people have more sedentary lives in general outside such activities. I would say if you looked at the stats of those who take regular exercise and eat small portions compared to the overall population, they're quite the small enough percentage. Go back 60 years and nigh on everyone was walking more, had few of the labour saving devices as we have and were eating far less sugar and starches and more of a meat and two veg diet. Hell I didn't really see pasta in any amount on people's plates until the 80's. Chinese food ditto and any sort of takeaway food was a treat rather than approaching a staple. Tobacco use in the past in men anyway(women tended to smoke less) might be also a factor as it's both an appetite suppressant and increases metabolism.

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

I would say this is due to differences in exercise and diet rather than genetic factors (a few generations isn't enough to make that much of a difference)

Oh sure K. It's down to environment rather than DNA(though I suspect crappy diets, especially hi sugar diets may switch off/on genes in the body making the problem worse). Indeed when people say they're fat because of their genetics I ask them to dig out old photos of their grandparents or better yet their great grandparents and get back to me. In most cases, but not all of course, their ancestors were thinner, if not much thinner. We've evolved to be lean. The body doesn't like much extra fat on the bones at all. Doubly so for blokes. We evolved to add fat quite easily to cover our arses in lean times*, but I suspect being overweight makes the body feel it's in danger mode and responds accordingly with health issues. In modern society you can be approaching gigantic and still survive even thrive, while back in the day something hairy and toothy would have seen you of if you couldn't run away fast enough, so the obese were rare, or a damn fine meal, depending on which side of the teeth you were.

You're how old? No wonder you know everything

I'm old enough to know that I know fcuk all and have forgotten most of it.





*I've always suspected one of modern humans killer app was the ability to grow a bit of a belly and that was a big advantage compared to some of our cousins. Apparently Neandertals just got bigger muscles if they ate more, which in turn meant they had to eat more to sustain them as muscles chomp through calories like a hungry shark even when at rest. They reckon an adult male Neandertal required at least 3500 calories per day to get by, the higher in protein and fat the better. You wanna lose weight? Lift weights. Big ones. Dieting reduces lean mass so in the long term you're getting rid of one of the biggest calorie consumers in the body and getting fatter.