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Posted on 09/16/2004 9:52:02 AM PDT by Smogger

RALEIGH -- These days, sirens such as Beyonce and J-Lo might pack a little too much back to win the Miss America pageant.

Marilyn Monroe might be considered too curvy to appear as a Playboy centerfold today.

A pair of researchers at Meredith College have the numbers to prove that America's ideal female body is a silhouette that has morphed from curvaceous to cigar-shaped in the past half-century. They've figured that out by using the height and weight of two sets of trademark red, white and blue beauties: Miss America winners and Playboy centerfolds.

The study suggests that America's obsession with thinness didn't begin in the 1950s, as others have concluded. It likely started much earlier, in the 1920s or '30s.

Meredith psychology professor Jack Huber has been studying body image for 15 years. He teamed with junior Kelly Beth Smith this summer for a new twist on past research that tracked how the body shapes of pinups and beauty queens have changed over the years.

In previous work by researchers, the weights of Miss Americas and Playboy centerfolds were compared with the weights of average women of the day.

"We didn't like this variable, because it didn't account for height," said Smith, 20. "Now, some of the models are so tall -- 6 feet plus -- and they may weight 130 pounds. But that's completely different than if you're 5 feet tall.

"We wanted a different measure to judge how these ideal figures measured up to the average size."

That magical measure is the body mass index, or BMI, which correlates with body fat.

A fairly simple math equation using weight and height will calculate whether someone is underweight, of normal weight, overweight or obese.

Smith and Huber had a feeling that today's tubular "ideals" had lower BMIs than the more curvaceous women of the past. Curvaceous women have narrow waists with larger bustlines and hips. Tubular women have more equal measurements from bust to waist to hips.

Leading actresses of yesterday -- Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Kim Novak and Jayne Mansfield -- have been replaced by Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston, Calista Flockhart and Halle Berry.

Thin is in

Over the years, iconic women such as models, pageant winners and actresses have become decidedly thin, while the average woman is becoming larger, research has shown.

Take the Miss America pageant, which began as a swimsuit competition on Atlantic City's boardwalk in 1921. Margaret Gorman, the first winner, was 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed 108 pounds.

Playboy's first issue, in December 1953, featured a curvaceous centerfold, a nude Marilyn Monroe.

A breakthrough 1980 study on cultural expectations looked at the two decades from 1959 to 1978 and found that American culture was promoting and adopting a thinner body size. That research compared Miss America winners and Playboy centerfolds by height and weight, as well as bust, waist and hip measurements.

The study also counted diet and fitness articles in popular women's magazines.

Other researchers updated the study in 1992 by picking up the decade from 1979 to 1988. They found an even more slim and underweight female "ideal." That work showed a significant increase in diet and exercise articles from 1959 to 1988.

The Meredith study this summer went a step further by calculating the body mass index for 80 years of Miss Americas and a half-century of centerfolds.

"There was a significant drop in body mass index in the '20s and '30s, indicating that this change in the view of women started earlier than people realized," said Smith, co-author of the Meredith study. "I think people are thinking it happened in the '70s or '80s."

Most revealing in the Meredith study was the very high correlation between the bodies of the beauty queens and those of the Playboy pinups over the years. Both sets of silhouettes thinned.

"It's highly significant," said Huber. "There's very little chance that this is occurring solely because of chance. Something is happening."

'Scary' beauty standard

Part of what Smith and Huber think is happening is a parade of unrealistic images on fashion runways, on television, at the movies and in magazines. The average woman in America has a BMI in the overweight category.

"The ideal female shapes that young girls and even women are looking at on TV and in magazines and comparing themselves to are completely unrealistic and unhealthy and unobtainable, which is scary," Smith said.

She pointed to actress Mary-Kate Olsen, who recently sought help for anorexia.

In the Triangle last year, Duke University students and faculty dug deeper into a phenomenon among campus women striving toward "effortless perfection."

Factor in the popularity of cosmetic surgery and ever-more-common airbrushing and eye-tricking techniques in photography, and Huber becomes nearly belligerent.

"If the media would quit portraying glamorous as so deadly skinny, we would be saving lives," he said.

Huber, who has taught at the women's college for 31 years, also aims criticism at the Miss America pageant, which will air another contest this month before millions of viewers.

"If it's a scholarship pageant, why has there never been a heavy-set Miss America who wears thick glasses?" he asked. "Why are the swimsuit and evening gown competitions the highlights?"

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Renoir and other Impressionist artists portrayed beautifully plump women, Huber said. Looking well-fed was considered a sign of wealth and leisure.

The Meredith professor noted that other research on the subject indicates that men are not usually the ones driving women to be thinner. Men typically like the hourglass figure -- narrow waist with wider hips and bust -- Huber said.

Curvaceous or chunky?

If you want to hear a strong reaction from a former Miss America contestant, refer to pop music artists Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Lopez as "chunky."

A male colleague of Lisa Bamford, Miss North Carolina 1995, made that mistake the other day.

"I think they are beautiful and curvaceous," Bamford said in a telephone interview from Nashville, Tenn. "I looked him straight in the eye and said, 'If one of them came in here and hit on you, you would take that opportunity.' "

Bamford, 30, said most of the women looked healthy when she competed for the Miss America crown. However, she remembers that one contestant was extremely underweight and that other competitors were concerned about her.

"Women have always been, unfortunately, the eye candy of society," said Bamford, a 1997 Meredith alumna. "We've seen what's happened recently with some young celebrities in the entertainment world and the dangers of being an unhealthy size."

Bamford is the director of entertainment for a company that trains and promotes people interested in recording contracts and performance careers in films, TV or modeling.

"I personally see all kinds of shapes and sizes," she said. "To me, it's such a blessing. The trend is actually turning to real-looking women in the forefront."

But, Bamford added, "unfortunately, people look back at Marilyn Monroe -- who was a sex goddess in her day -- and say she was overweight. Some of the classic beauties of our time might not even make it today."

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