Walking the Tightrope: The Eye Of The Beholder
Sally Codman muses on feminine beauty - and wishes she had been alive at the time when Rubens was painting curvy, rounded women.
What makes a woman attractive? That's the sort of question you could easily be tempted to answer with another question, such as; "how long is a piece of string?," because, as we all know,“'beauty is in the eye of the beholder’’ and “one man's meat is another man's poison!’’
The point I'm trying to make, of course, is that whilst one guy might consider a pale-skinned, red-haired, curvy girl a real Babe, another wouldn't give her the time of day.
He's busy admiring the olive-skinned, black-eyed, slender senorita who's caught his eye - although these days it would probably be a bottle-blonde, six-foot-tall, Barbie-doll with a spray on tan.
Throughout History the concept of "beauty" has changed as often as other fashions. I should have been around at the time Rubeens was painting his curvy, rounded women - my roly-poly figure would have been all the rage. I'd have been able to ditch the diet-sheets and save a fortune on gym membership - not to mention hours of precious time trying to conform to today's ideal of a waif-like Ally McBeal look that I'll never get in a million years.
If I'm being honest I know all I'll really achieve is some damage limitation, the option of still wearing my favourite outfits and most important of all, a healthier heart.
Joking aside, the current fashion for a model-figure and perfectly-groomed good looks, has a lot to answer for. Flicking through the glossy Sunday supplements (I have to get my kicks somehow) I'm often horrified by the descriptions of bizarre and hideously expensive new beauty treatments.
Now we've all got used to the idea that many people regularly pay good money to have bits of fat they don't like hoovered away (liposuction). Fat-beating injections are the next big thing - despite the fact that they've not been tested thoroughly.
Or you can try a horrific, sand-blasting-type facial (ouch!) to remove the imperfect top-layer of skin, leaving it smooth (and presumably pink) if you've more money to burn.
What really had me laughing was the way to get the latest spray-on tan. Now sun-lamps are definitely a no-no. You can go and literally be sprayed all over with fake tan.
Evidently machine-sprays are used - similar to a car paint-spray job. Apparently you have to hold your breath too - could be lethal if you get a giggling fit at the wrong moment!
Time was these sort of treatments were only for the Hollywood elite, but today the pressure to conform and the hope of looking more like your movie idol, means even Jane Public is spending her hard-earned cash on these bizarre and expensive procedures.
Scientists have recently confirmed that most beauty marketing promises are a waste of time and money.
Boffins at Newcastle and Stirling Universities have discovered a mathematical formula which determines whether a woman is attractive or not. They asked male and female students to examine pictures of women's bodies, cropped below their heads, and say which were the most attractive.
Surprise, surprise, they concluded that the ideal woman is tall and slim with long legs!
Do they get paid to enjoy themselves like this in the name of science?
Next these brains of Britain measured the women's curves through the WHR - waist-to-hip ratio to you and me - or the width of the women's waist divided by the width of her hips.
Then they compared and contrasted this with a woman's BMI - her weight in kilogrammes, divided by the square of her height in metres (just hang on a mo while I get the calculator out, no I'm not telling you the result, but I'm certain it won't be the ideal score of 20 to 21).
And the final conclusion, published in the Royal Society journal, is that BMI is a stronger predictor of attractiveness than WHR or, in a nutshell, the ideal 'look' of today is a tall, leggy and blonde.
Amazing, most of us small, dark, rounded women could have told you that in two minutes without doing any 'scientific' experiments at all.
So shall I be dashing off to have my legs surgically stretched a foot or so, my hair bleached, and undergoing the odd spot of liposuction? No way! I'll just keep reminding myself that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.
Copyright Sally Codman ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
