I used to think that the "fashion industry" did not have any involvement in promoting the thin figure. That is because I thought that men are attracted to thin women, as a result of evolution. Then, with amazement, I discovered that a critical flaw within my beliefs.
Shortly after, I corrected myself. It is indeed true that the fashion industry does promote a thin figure. Gay men and women work at the fashion industry, and they select thin females as their models. They select thin models, because those gay men and women think that thin females are attractive, which is found to be false. However, there are not ENOUGH straight men working in the fashion industry to correct that error, so thin models will continue to be selected. Unfortunately, straight women would then follow the fashion models in the industry. They will believe that those fashion models represent the "ideal" female figure. But they are not "ideal" as they seem.
For centuries, men are attracted to the classic "hourglass figure." That means, that those men are attracted to women who possess broad hips and narrow waists. In addition to this, men do not care if a little fat is stored around their hips, thighs, and face. Those preferences still stay intact amongst men nowadays, because they are inherent from result of evolution.
However, a lot of women are mistaken. Nowadays, some women think any figure which is bigger than the typical fashion model as "fat." Yes, they call them "fat" because they have a higher fat percentage compared to the thin models in the fashion industry. That is why so many attractive women call themselves "fat" even though they have a ideal face and body.
Even celebrities err on the side of the fashion industry. It is not uncommon to hear that celebrities starve themselves. It is not uncommon to hear that celebrities worry about their figure. Women may follow those celebrities, combined the fashion models, which results in a everlasting loop of social reinforcement.
However, I would not solely place the blame on the fashion industry. Women are biased to prefer to thin women, beacuse, well, they are women. Women dislike fat on men, so some women will conclude that men also dislike fat on women. In addition, women are attracted to narrow faces on men. Therefore, some women will mistakenly conclude that narrow faces on women are also attractive. (Ridley 1993) This belief, originating from the gay men or women working in the fashion industry, perpetuates throughout the media, until it becomes a well-established truism.
It is, therefore, not solely the fault of the fashion industry, but by an intuitive error stemming from the preference inversion of the opposite sex.
It is indeed a myth that men are sexually attracted by rich women, overly-tanned skin, and thin legs. Men may prefer slightly tanned skin, as they look healthier, but they do not prefer the overly-tanned skin of fashion models. Furthermore, even though wealth and tanned skin may be a status symbol, men are not influenced by them, because, status, in itself, has no influence on the sexual attractiveness of women.
(I did realize that I was not attracted to the overly-thin figures of fashion models. However, I ignored that fact as a result of my confirmation bias.)
References
Holland, Erik. Why are fashion models so skinny?
Ridley, Matt (1993). The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Pages 301-313:
Each gender uses its own preferences to guide its own behavior. Experiments show that men think women care about physique much more than they actually do; women think men care about status cues much more than they actually do. So perhaps each sex simply acts out its instincts in the conviction that the other sex likes the same things as they do.
One experiment seems to support the idea that men and women mistake their own preferences for those of the opposite sex. April Fallon and Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania showed four simple line drawings of male or female figures in swimsuits to nearly five hundred undergraduates. In each case the figures differed only in thinness: They asked the subjects to indi- cate their current figure, their ideal figure, the figure that they con- sidered most attractive to the opposite sex, and the figure they thought most attractive in the opposite sex. Men ' s current, ideal, and attractive figures were almost identical; men are, on average, content with their figures. Women, as expected, were far heavier than what they thought most attractive to men, which was heavier still than their own ideal. But intriguingly, both sexes erred in their estimation of what the other sex most likes. Men think women like a heavier build than they do; women think men like women thinner than they do.
Disclaimer: This was just a summary, not a well-sourced article.
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