As indicated above, this often depends on a general concept of societal norms or is due to peer pressure. That is, each individual has his/her own perception of how fat he/she should be. Traditionally, a person’s fatness has been defined at a personal level as well as at a societal level. This concept has moderated but still influences women’s views of beauty and eating habits at present.Fatness as a Personal or Society Issue The result was that thinness was not only desirable but also required. However, the 1920s Flapper era introduced abbreviated and revealing dresses. Before the 1920s, “full figured” women were considered to be desirable as long as the distribution was hourglass in type. More recently, the degree of rotundity considered ideal also has varied considerably in the general population, but particularly for young women. However, it may have depended on the availability of a reliable food supply and the effort required in obtaining it. Why the degree of fatness has varied in different cultures is not clear. This also is the case in artifacts from other cultures in the Middle East in that era. In contrast, images of obese people, males or females, are never exhibited in ancient Egyptian funerary wall paintings, stellae, or statues suggesting that fatness was not considered to be a desirable trait there. This suggests being “full figured” was highly desirable at least for women. It is clearly manifested by paleolithic statuettes of exceedingly plump women. All of these issues are discussed in this brief review.īody fatness has been an important psychosocial issue among humans for millennia. Lastly, current evidence indicates there is a wide range of BMIs over which mortality risk is modest, and this is age related. The latter is related not only to untoward health issues but to social issues as well. Importantly, the BMI also does not capture information on the mass of fat in different body sites. However, it is increasingly clear that BMI is a rather poor indicator of percent of body fat. In addition, it is widely used in determining public health policies.The BMI has been useful in population-based studies by virtue of its wide acceptance in defining specific categories of body mass as a health issue. It also is widely used as a risk factor for the development of or the prevalence of several health issues. The common interpretation is that it represents an index of an individual’s fatness. The body mass index (BMI) is the metric currently in use for defining anthropometric height/weight characteristics in adults and for classifying (categorizing) them into groups.
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