And those standards can effect what we find attractive. But let's take that example of being overweight.

It's true there was a time when being overweight was viewed as a status symbol (if you had money you could binge all day).  But generally speaking, at the times and place in history where fatness was a good thing, the food was scarce and or the lifespan was much shorter than it is here in the present day.

So yes, the original purpose of storing all that fat was to have a savings account for calories to get you through a famine.  It makes perfect sense.  In a way, the obese people of today have great genes...or at least they would if our food supply was destroy for some reason and they had to survive for a month or their warped to an earlier time in history or another continent with food scarcity.

If people only lived to be in their 20's or 40's or *maybe* 50's, sure, but they often live into the 70's now, and with heart attacks, strokes, arthritis and so on, being overweight will likely cut into it or make it more complicated to say the least.

And again, the wast-hip ratio and symmetry both span just about every culture.  An interesting read (which now might be dated in some ways) is The Anatomy Of Love by Helen Fisher PhD. It talks about standards of beauty in different countries and also goes into how some things do transcend culture.  It also gets into a lot of other stuff about mate selection and reproduction and is an overall fascinating read.

by Tom Hanc on 02/15/2008 11:38:58 AM EST

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