How did we go from idealizing voluptuous Greek goddesses to stick-thin Hollywood hotties?
The last time we saw a full-figured woman idealized and glamorized was in the 15th century. And Marilyn Monroe, Miss Size 16 (today’s size 8), surely does not count, because—although inarguably curvy—she was as teeny as they came back then. Look at Botticelli’s Primavera, Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, or Titian’s Venus of Urbino—these 14th- and 15th-century paintings represented the respected—even glorified—image of women of early times: thick thighs, round stomach, modest breasts. All very real and quite the contrast from today’s ideals. Do you think women back then were beating themselves up to be like the image of the Greek goddess Venus? Maybe they would just simply eat more? (Now that sounds like a happy world to me.) Let’s fast-forward to the Victorian era and see how the “ideal” woman’s body has changed throughout the years… In the 1800s… Pale, plump and perfect, that’s how women were. The full-figured, pear-shaped ladies were the ones the men wooed. A young woman’s main objective was t
