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Historical analyses were used to test the hypothesis that the recent outbreak of eating disorders among women may be due, in part, to the slim standard of bodily attractiveness for women that has become fashionable. Historical changes in the standard were estimated by means of a measurement of the curvaceousnes of women depicted in photographs appearing in Vogue and Ladies Home Journal since 1901. When variation in the standard is measured across time, adherence to a slim standard is associated with low body weight among college women, with preoccupation with obesity in popular magazines and with various symptoms of eating disorders reported by experts cited in the mass media.
Silverstein et al. (Tue,) studied this question.