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The hourglass figure is truly timeless

ramonmercado

ramonmercado

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The hourglass figure is truly timeless
10:22 10 January 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi

Written texts of all ages have the same drift when it comes to the midriff - they consistently describe women’s thin waists as attractive. The conclusion comes from an analysis of British, Indian and Chinese texts dating as far back as the first century AD. According to the researchers, the finding supports the idea that we are hardwired to prefer slender waists, which are linked to good health and fertility.

It is no secret that modern culture places a premium on Barbie-doll shaped bodies. Some scientists have argued, however, that this preference only represents modern Western values.

To gain perspective on the issue, psychologist Devendra Singh at the University of Texas at Austin, US, and colleagues mined the Literature Online (LION) database, which contains over 345,000 British and American works of fiction, prose and drama from 1500 to 1799.

Singh says he decided to analyse written texts instead of paintings, because clothing can sometimes obscure the waist size of characters depicted in the latter art form. He adds that written texts can give a clearer idea of how the subject should be perceived: “In poetry you say it outright, ‘Here is a beautiful woman and look at her waist.”

Clear, bright and neat
The database search yielded 2873 references to the waist in British texts, of which 87 were determined by two independent reviewers as having a romantic tone. The search similarly produced 219 romantic references to women’s breasts, 57 to thighs and 15 to buttocks.

All of the romantic references to the waist described it as slender. For example, in the early 1600s British poet John Harington described a beautiful woman as follows: “Her skin, and teeth, must be cleare, bright, and neat…/ Large brests, large hips, large space betweene the browes,/ A narrow mouth, small waste…”

But romantic descriptions of other body parts were less consistent about size. Many of the British writers eulogised small breasts, for example.

Singh then asked experts on Indian and Chinese literature to nominate ancient erotic poetry describing beautiful women. They suggested two Indian epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana, from the first to third century AD, and Chinese sixth dynastic Palace poetry from the fourth to sixth century AD.

Once again all of the romantic references to the waist – 56 in all – described the body part as attractively narrow . There is “not a single exception”, notes Singh.

Abdominal fat
He believes the ancient praise for slender midriffs is significant because it was only in the 1950s that scientists began understanding that comparing a person’s waist and hip measurements can serve as a key health indicator. For example, even individuals with relatively trim arms and thighs are at higher risk of heart disease if they have lots of abdominal fat.

Abdominal obesity has also been linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer and diabetes. Previous research has also hinted that women with low “waist-to-hip ratios” are more fertile (see Barbie-doll shaped women more fertile).

Singh believes that the consistent praise for women’s slender waists means that humans are hardwired to view the trait as beautiful. “This consensus could not be based on an arbitrary thing,” he says of the texts his team analysed. Instead our brains evolved a preference for this trait, because of its link to good health, the psychologist suggests.

He acknowledges that some artists, such as Peter Paul Rubens, have celebrated voluptuous women with thick waists. But Singh says such celebrations of thick waists are very much the exception, not the rule.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DIO: 10.1098/rspb.2006.0239)

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Weblinks

Devendra Singh, University of Texas at Austin
http://www.psy.utexas.edu/psy/FACULTY/Singh/Singh.html

LION database
http://lion.chadwyck.com/

Proceedings of the Royal Society B
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/index.cfm?page=1087


Curves
Click to expand...
 
Evolutionary psychology

Breathe in, girls

Jan 11th 2007
From The Economist print edition


For two thousand years men have written about ladies with small waists

SOME gentlemen may prefer blondes, but almost all seem to like a waist to hip ratio of between 0.6 and 0.7. Breasts and bottoms should be substantial; waists should be slim. It should be the case all over the world and throughout human history.

That, at least, is the prevailing theory among evolutionary psychologists. The ratio in question correlates with hormone levels promoting maximum female fertility and health, so men who prefer curvy women will have more children. Devendra Singh, of the University of Texas, in Austin, has proved the point in the past by measuring the vital statistics of Playboy models. He found that centrefolds vary in weight but not in their hourglass shapes.

Playmates' shapes, however, reveal only the psychology of Playboy's mainly American readers—and do so only since 1953, when Marilyn Monroe appeared in the first issue. To make a stronger case for the theory, Dr Singh and his colleagues have turned to historical descriptions of beauties in the literature of Britain, China and India.


It is hardly poetic to write about a knockout's two-thirds ratio, nor equally appropriate across cultures to scribe complementary descriptions of bosoms and behinds, so the analysis focused on romantic references to female waists. Among the results, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, all 66 entries about waist size in the sample of British literature from the 16th to the 18th centuries described the waists as small or narrow—even though there were nearly four times as many romantic references to ladies who were plump overall, than there were to slim women.

Similarly, every beauty portrayed in first- to third-century Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, and in Chinese sixth dynastic Palace poetry, had a slender waist whenever that part of the body was mentioned. This is not proof, but it adds weight to the idea that men have been predictable since the beginning of time.


http://www.economist.com/science/displa ... id=8516458
Click to expand...
 
I never got far with my sonnet:

"Shall I compare thee to a Russian Doll?"

Mention of Rubens just confuses them these days. :(
 
I saw an interesting thing on the History Channel or some other similar channel. A guy had a big chart of a woman's figure, each with a slightly different proportion. He took them all over the world -- including natives in South America, which was shown on the program -- and the response was overwhelming for the 36-24-36 figure. Twas interesting, twas.
 
So what qualifies for an hourglass figure? I've been told I have one but I just measured myself and I'm 38-32-38. Does that mean I really am an hourglass or just festively plump, as an ex put it?
 
Maybe the next big trend in cosmetic surgery will be rib removal. ;)
 
My figure too can be compared to an archaic timepiece. :D


That'll be a battered old wind-up alarm clock. :(
 
Mister_Awesome said:
I saw an interesting thing on the History Channel or some other similar channel. A guy had a big chart of a woman's figure, each with a slightly different proportion. He took them all over the world -- including natives in South America, which was shown on the program -- and the response was overwhelming for the 36-24-36 figure. Twas interesting, twas.
Click to expand...

Did this research allow for the fact that some women are taller than others? I'd imagine that a very tall woman would have measurements larger than 36-24-36.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Mister_Awesome said:
I saw an interesting thing on the History Channel or some other similar channel. A guy had a big chart of a woman's figure, each with a slightly different proportion. He took them all over the world -- including natives in South America, which was shown on the program -- and the response was overwhelming for the 36-24-36 figure. Twas interesting, twas.
Click to expand...

Did this research allow for the fact that some women are taller than others? I'd imagine that a very tall woman would have measurements larger than 36-24-36.
Click to expand...

It was just rows of drawings of women who were all the same height. I meant the proportions, not the specific measurements. Sorry if I was unclear. Been sick and it's making me a little slow.
 
I would have thought it is obvious. Men like thin waists as it shows that a woman is not already pregnant with another mans child!
 
That's the most sense I've heard on here for a long time. 8)


Well, since my last post. ;)
 
An hour glass figure is when a woman's waist is 10 inches smaller than her bust and hips. For example 36-26-36. Bigger hips are known as pear-shaped and bigger breasts and darn lucky! ;)
 
Apparently, a low Waist/Hip ratio (i.e. small waist relative to hip width) is an indicator of higher estrogen levels during puberty. The higher the estrogen levels, the lower the ratio. Most primates give birth to well developed babies (i.e. they stay in the womb for longer, the brain being more developed at birth) but this requires a larger canal ( :oops: for want of a better word!) to get them out. The reason that human females have wider hips than most primates is to allow them to walk upright and maintain the space between the hips to get bigger brained babies out.

So - the reason that a low hip/waist ratio is more attractive to the opposite sex is both practical (better chance of successful childbirth) and also a clear indicator of general health, and fertility (back to the estrogen levels).

As far as the top half is concerned, many anthropologists believe that the breasts are a mirror of the buttocks, and have been growing for thousands of generations due to positive sexual selection. There is no practical reason why breasts should be bigger than in other primates, unlike hips.
 
I though that the recent reasoning for humans to have larger breasts than expected was because we have flatter faces than other primates. If we didn't have larger breasts our babies would sufficate.
 
You may be right - I have not read much on the subject for a few years. Although children of mothers with hardly any breasts do not, I guess, generally suffocate?
 
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