LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Why so thin

Last year the organizers of Madrid Fashion Week announcedthat they were banning extremely thin fashion models todevelop a more healthy image for their show (Times, 2006).According to The Associated Press, the Spanish governmentrecently reached an agreement with major fashion designersto standardize women’s clothing sizes with the aim ofpromoting a healthier image. The authors welcome suchattitudes. But why do such thin models show up on thecatwalk in the first place? Some persons may find thinmodels to be the most attractive, but we feel that there areprobably other reasons.Tens of thousands of generations ago there were two typesof men. One type was attracted to plump women, and theother was attracted to thin women. At every opportunity,these two types attempted to mate with a woman having aphysique that matched their individual preferences. At thattime, it was very unlikely that woman could complete her 40weeks of pregnancy without experiencing a food shortage.Fat in women’s subcutaneous adipose tissue was stable andremained in the tissue for a much longer period than thevisceral fat that men usually had. In this sense, subcutaneousfat served as an excellent long-lasting reservoir of energy forpregnancy. Since thin women lacked this reservoir, theirbabies had a lesser chance or survival than did the babies offat women. This sort of natural selection continued genera-tion after generation, century after century, millennium aftermillennium. Eventually men developed a natural attractionfor plump women, who had bodies with enough fat in theirsubcutaneous tissue. Famous paintings of beauties before theage of the fashion show are full of plump women, whethernude or not. Such paintings can be found all over the world,including Europe, Arab countries, China and Japan. Thefashion show changed everything.In the early days of the fashion show, fashion designers sooncame to realize that plump and attractive models were useless.The majority of collection buyers were men (as is still truetoday). If a model with a plump and attractive body appearedon the catwalk, men might not be able to pay attention to heroutfit and might instead imagine what lay beneath it. The factthat fashion collections look best on thin models may be truesimply because the viewer finds less to distract his attentionfrom the clothing. As a result, fashion designers were forced tochoose thin models who, aside from their beautiful faces,might have bodies that many persons would considerunattractive. Some male buyers no doubt felt relief becausethey were no longer disturbed in their work by sexual urgesand could instead focus their attention on the collections.Many men are confused by the discrepancy between theirinstincts and the physiques of fashion models. We hope thatour logic described above could clear their confusion. Also,we would be very happy if our logic could discouragethoughtless admiration for a very thin body, and couldeventually prevent young women from trying to go on ameaningless diet.T Hamazaki and K Hamazaki