I just got to thinking this today when my cousin, who is teaching English in Japan, mentioned to me on MSN that one of her coworkers was trying to lose drastic amounts of weight. When I asked how much he weighed, she said he was 160 lbs and that was considered 'fat' over there for a man, and that on the whole, men and women preferred the slim graceful look. They also tended toward what we might call the 'metro' look where they were interested in beauty products and pampering themselves.

Suddenly this made sense to me because I remember recently when I was at the mall waiting for a friend, and I wandered into a comic book store and noticed the cultural differences between the comic books of different country origin. You can often learn a lot from the art of a particular country and their consumption habits. Usually it represents an ideal, kind of like how all the ancient Greek statues were of athletes or well proportioned people.

The ones from Asia or Japan had heroes who looked like your typical Prince Charming, or a Leonardo Di Caprio type. Here is your archetype 'stud' in Japan that appeals to both men and women.





On the other hand, in reference to the Greeks this is the kind of art we had in the West.



whose natural extension is your comic book hero, Thor



I just thought it was interesting how things can be so fundamentally different in other parts of the world

thump

Interesting Thump......thanks!! Such a huge difference

I'm from Poland and when I go there on vacation to visit my family, my sister and I always get teased for being chubby. I'm 5'8" 135lbs and my sis is 5'3" 118lbs. There's a lot of snobbery against overweight people in parts of Poland because an overweight person is seen as someone that is over-indulgent. I also know from visiting other European countries where people see themselves as superior when they're thinner (ie France, Italy)

WOW That's just crazy!!!

what about being muscular or fit vs being skinny?

would they dig someone who looked like Jillian?

Yeah tell me about it.
It was mostly cousins that did the teasing and when my sister and I got back home from our vacation, we always thought that we were fat. Now we're used to it and we don't care what they say. We find something to tease them back with:)


I think they would dig Jillian because she's petite. She's muscular but not in a large way.
Also, in Poland there are quite a few 'muscular' women in the rural farm areas because they do not have the machinery that we do in North America and do a lot of the farm labour manually. Much of the overweight population there consists of older people that no longer can handle the physical labour so the muscle turns into fat. My family comes from a farm and when we moved to Canada, my mom gained a few pounds because her muscle was turning into fat (and its not like she knew anything about gym or exercise) so she had to find a way to slim down. The thing with a lot of Eastern European countries is that they used to be communist so being fat was generally resented because it was seen that you can afford to indulge in going to restaurants or afford lots of sweets etc...

In France, they're complete snobs about being skinny, but then, they smoke like chimneys so you can't really take their 'health advice' seriously.

My boyfriend is from Slovakia so I completely agree with that statement. He's made similar remarks like that as well. The other thing with Eastern Europe (well, Europe in general) is that a lot people have farms. They have fresh fruit and vegetables on hand. My boyfriend has only been in the US for about 5 years and most of his family is still in Slovakia and they have their own little garden in their yard. The only thing they go to the store for is milk, cheese, bread, meat, etc. They also have their own chickens for fresh eggs. They eat "clean" and don't go to restuarants. They don't eat twinkies and crap like we have here with all of the peservatives. Things like that are popping up more in the stores but a lot people just don't eat it. Also their sweets are A LOT different from American sweets. He doesn't eat a lot of desserts here b.c they're sooooo rich and too sweet for him. They also do a lot of walking and are more active than most people here. We're going over there this summer and that's a HUGE motivation for me. I don't have much weight to lose. I was only like 7 lbs out of normal range so 2 more and I'm back in normal. The rest is just vanity and wanting to be back at my cheerleading weight from high school. I don't want to go over there and be the fat American, you know?!?

I think this is interesting too: Culture plays a huge part in how we eat.

Time have done an photo essay on what different people eat around the world. It's not hard to spot the differences.