[geaux]

When I was in college fifteen years ago, the toilets in our sorority house backed up on a regular basis because of all the purging going on around the house. One group of girls would compete to see which one could go the longest without eating. When my mother was in highschool, almost forty-five years ago, she and her friends would eat only celery for days at a time to avoid gaining weight. When my grandmother was a young woman, about sixty-five years ago, she starved herself during pregnancy for fear of getting too fat. Her mother before her suffered fainting spells because she insisted that her corset maintain a thirteen inch waist. I went to my three-year old neice's birthday party yesterday, and her favorite gift was a Barbie doll. Girls and young women want to be the most desired creature on the block -- and that's not fat and ugly. You can't change ugly, but you can change fat.

[68skylark]

The author of this piece seems to assume that things were different and better in the past. I think your comment helps debunk that assumption.

For the most part, I think human nature doesn't change much over the generations. So I'm suspicious when people assume the past was better.