By Darren Devine
Scientists are to study how clothing can affect the appearance of the female rear. Women everywhere are apparently hoping the research will make the age-old question, "Does my butt look big in this?" redundant. They will simply be able to avoid those clothes that accentuate the size of their backsides and opt for fabrics that give their posteriors the shape and appearance they have always longed for.
And men are now able to look forward to the day when they will be spared the ordeal of tip-toeing around a subject more likely to end in disharmony and strife than your average round of Arab/ Israeli peace negotiations. But there is a crucial point the researchers are missing. Men like curves. They are a sign of health and represent a much more realistic shape for women to aspire to than the stick-thin supermodel form.
Beyond the cocooned world of fashion journalism that has spawned a generation of anorexic teenagers with its deification of stick-insect supermodels, the sickly-thin look has few admirers. And let's not forget these are the people who tried to persuade us that "heroin chic" was attractive.
Greying, pallid skin pulled tight over gaunt cheekbones is a look that only the dead should wear. It wasn't that long ago, of course, that the media offered conceptions of the ideal female form that some women had at least a shred of hope of achieving and men actually found sexy. Forty years or so ago, the iconic female image was the hourglass figure -- represented by women like Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield. The hourglass has not entirely disappeared as an image of vital femininity, but it has long since lost out to the angular and abrupt form of the supermodel as the female ideal. Today's torch bearers for the hourglass are the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé Knowles and Charlotte Church.
Indeed, Beyoncé and Ms. Lopez have become global superstars not by attempting to conceal, but celebrating their more ample posteriors. How bizarre then that Charlotte Church ends up as a better role model for teenage girls than the fashion icons adorning the pages of Vogue. But better your happy and healthy teenage daughter vomits after the occasional night of excess than your vulnerable and disturbed daughter throws up because she wants to starve herself half to death.
And there is medical evidence to suggest women with hourglass figures are healthier -- research has shown women with this body shape are more likely to become pregnant. Last year, a study looking at 119 Polish women published in the Royal Society Journal Proceedings said women with large breasts and narrow waists have higher hormone levels.
Barbie as a cultural icon >
