Ideal beauty

Nigerian teenager Happiness Edem had just one aim

in life: to put on weight. So she spent six months in a
‘fattening room’ where her daily routine was to sleep, eat
and grow fat.
She went in a trim 60 kg, but came out weighing twice
that. In some parts of Africa, being fat is desirable because
it symbolizes attractiveness in women and power and
prosperity in men. However, in magazines and in the media
we are bombarded with images of slim, blonde-haired and
sun-tanned women or handsome, blue-eyed and broad-
shouldered young men. Where are the short-sighted,
middle-aged models? Is one idea of physical beauty really
more attractive than another?

insight Intermediate Student’s Book Unit 1 pp.4–5   © Oxford University Press 2014 1
 Ideas about physical beauty change over time and
different periods of history reveal different views of beauty,
particularly of women. Egyptian paintings often show
slender dark-haired women as the norm, while one of the
earliest representations of women in art in Europe is a
carving of an overweight female. This is the Venus of Hohle
Fels and it is more than 35,000 years old. In the early 1600s,
artists like Peter Paul Rubens also painted plump, pale-
skinned women who were thought to be the most stunning
examples of female beauty at that time. In Elizabethan
England, pale skin was still fashionable, but in this period it
was because it was a sign of wealth: the make-up to achieve
this look was expensive, so only rich people could afford it.
Within different cultures around the world, there is a
huge variation in what is considered beautiful. Traditional
customs, like tattooing, head-shaving, piercing or other kinds
of body modification can express status, identity or beliefs.
In Borneo, for instance, tattoos are like a diary because
they are a written record of all the important events and
places a man has experienced in his life. For New Zealand’s
Maoris they reflect the person’s position in society. In
western society, where tattoos used to be considered a sign
of rebellion, the culture is changing and they are now a very
popular form of body art.
For Europeans, the tradition of using metal rings to stretch
a girl’s neck may be shocking, but the Myanmar people
consider women with long, thin necks more elegant. In
Indonesia, the custom of sharpening girls’ teeth to points
might seem strange to other cultures, but it is perfectly
acceptable elsewhere to straighten children’s teeth with
braces. Body piercing, dieting, cosmetic surgery or the use
of fake tan might be seen as ugly and unattractive by some
cultures, but they are commonplace in many others.
It appears that through the ages and across different
cultures, people have always changed their bodies and
faces for a wide variety of reasons. Does this mean that
underneath the tattoos, rings and piercings, we’re all
A002002

beautiful in our own way?

insight Intermediate Student’s Book Unit 1 pp.4–5   © Oxford University Press 2014 2