How about a picture illustrating a word you decided (at a late date) not to include? That way, you wouldn’t need to create a fresh illustration.

I’ve been wondering when an ideal of size 8-10 started.

I’m a fan of the Busby Berkeley musicals of the early to mid 1930s. Anyone who has seen these films (or even clips from them) will recall that they involve a large number of (mostly female) dancers. While none of the hoofers are overweight (dancing is, after all, an activity that burns off calories) many of them look (to my eye) more than a size 10. In fact, re-watching the dance routines (it’s probably not what one will notice on a first viewing) it has often occurred to me that there are plenty of body shapes on view that twenty-first century Hollywood would certainly reject. Body shape fascism is clearly growing more tyrannical.

Susie Orbach pointed out that fat is a feminist issue, but the prevailing tyranny debars women who are certainly not fat. Many women are well above size 10 without carrying any excess weight.

I think the size 8-10 thing has to do with the youthful ideal (which is imposed more upon women than upon men)… the idea that to be beautiful it is necessary to appear young. (Companies that make products to combat the appearance of aging must make a lot of money from this.) Specifically on size 8-10, my feeling is that it is natural for women to reach (at least) size 12 during their twenties.

That is bizarre!

Bizarrely hadn’t occurred to me. Perhaps there will be.

I think most conceptions of beauty boil down to people wanting what they can’t have, really.

Although I have to say I think the size 0 thing is different, because it’s completely sexless.

Indeed, I’ve lost count of the number of times some male has thumped the table in a pub and cried out some variant of ‘BUT WHY CAN’T WOMEN SEE THAT BEING SIZE 0 THIN JUST ISN’T ATTRACTIVE’.

Um… it’s not all about you, sunshine.

While, of course, there’s still a requirement for women to be thin, i’d estimate most average people would put the ideal at around size 8-10, which still accommodates a reasonable amount of junk in the trunk.