Learning Curves: Iconic Body Image

Over the centuries the lives and interests of women have changed beyond all recognition - generally, most would agree, for the better. It's unthinkable to modern women that our predecessors were denied the right to inherit, to vote, and in so many other ways to be considered equal to men. Despite our striving for that equality, however, there is one way in which we definitely still prefer to be very different from men: that is our body shape!

Amazingly our perception of the perfect female body image and shape has never really changed, and throughout history we have maintained a desire for the hour-glass figure. In fact, we have gone to great lengths to achieve it - by fair means or fake! Over the years we have corseted our waistlines to the point of asphyxiation, enhanced our bottoms with bustles and crinolines, and boosted our bust-lines with padded bras. Think of iconic beautiful women and the chances are they share the same iconic body image: from Marilyn Monroe to our very own Nigella Lawson - it's the curves that count.

And it seems our ideas are not about to change any time soon: these days increasing numbers of us turn to plastic surgery to achieve this ideal body-image. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery the quest for the hour-glass figure is still an international phenomenon: the Brazilians opt for buttock enhancements for bootyliciousness (think J-lo, Beyonce), while breast implants and tummy tucks are both in the top 5 procedures worldwide. Frustratingly, where our mothers and grandmothers seemed to naturally acquire a waistline, we are increasingly developing a more masculine body shape - the muffin-top is now our equivalent of the male beer-belly and it's one area we really don't need equality! In fact, in a recent comedy sketch comedienne Sarah Milican referred the 'muffin-top' as a 'cake-shelf' so who knows where it end!

So just what is going on? Well, the muffin-top is the consequence of thirty or so years of mistaken beliefs about the low-fat diet. It's almost unbelievable that avoiding dietary fat leads to us accumulating excess body fat - especially around our middles - yet that is exactly what nutritional science has now revealed.

The dangers of the low-fat solution are now absolutely evident. In 2012, The Harvard School of Public Health branded the low-fat diet more dangerous than saturated fat, linking it with excessive and hard to shift abdominal fat and the tell tale shape linked with serious illnesses including diabetes and heart disease.