Are Slim, Tanned Women Truly Beautiful, Or is This Just a Passing Fad?

Wherever you go these days, you’re bombarded by billboards, TV shows and magazine covers all showing images of slim, tanned women. This is what men want, and this is what women want to look like. Has it always been this way? Is this true beauty, or just a cultural fad?

If you go back in time 35,000 years, and if you were lucky, you might have observed a hairy ancestor of ours, carving away at a rock to make it the shape of a very overweight woman. This is the Venus of Hohle Fels, and it’s the oldest known representation of a female. In the 1600s Paul Peter Rubens portrayed beautiful women as rather plump, too. Why would women be represented this way, if this body image wasn’t the ideal? Indeed, one of Rubens’ most famous paintings is Venus at a Mirror – a depiction of the Goddess of love who is usually portrayed in a more streamlined form. The Egyptians, on the other hand, consistently show slim women in their paintings, suggesting that the ideal in ancient Egypt was far closer to the current trend.

Since the standards of beauty change through time, it’s tempting to conclude that beauty is an arbitrary fad, an unstable element at the mercy of current fashion and prevailing opinion; and to a certain extent, this is true. The ideal weight does not seem to be fixed, but it is not arbitrary. The poorer the society, the heavier the ideal. This is thought to be because in poor societies, only the rich can afford to be overweight, and so this body shape is attached to the concept of beauty. In rich countries, being overweight is not a signal of wealth – so occasionally a thin ideal can develop.

This is a common theme among standards of female beauty throughout time and across culture – it is a signal, of sorts, that indicates a desirable characteristic in itself. Beauty is just the messenger. For example, a symmetrical face is seen as being attractive, but this is a signal of health, as parasitic infection is more common among people with asymmetrical facial features. Likewise, a waist-to-hip ratio of around 0.68 is seen as attractive, and this is thought to be a signal of fertility.

Throughout the years thinkers and philosophers have asked; what is beauty? And we may be closer to an answer. Although the specific facets and features that are considered beautiful may change through time and culture, the general concept behind beauty remains the same. Beauty is a signal. Whether we consciously know it or not, we respond to beauty because it indicates a quality mate; someone who is of high social standing, or someone who is healthy and free of parasites.