The Perfect Body Essay, Research Paper

There is no such thing as the perfect body, however we all continue to strive for this goal. Advertising contains models and ideas of what the perfect body should look like, unfortunately someone forgot to tell the marketers that the models in their ads represent a very small portion of the world s population. The traditional attitudes towards diet, body image, and fitness in the past have made many people so obsessed with looking perfect, that they go as far as putting their lives in danger. Studies where done by Paul Rozen and April Fallon to see how the populations views their body and how they should look, Steven Blair took the time to re think fitness in his study on David Alexander and finally the Pima Indians of Arizona and our collective metabolism.

Paul Rozin and April Fallon of the University of Pennsylvania did a study using both male and female American College students. The students were asked o view a number of body shapes of both male and female that ranged from unbelievably skinny to obese. There were then asked to the image that they thought they most closely resemble, followed by the image they wished they looked like, and then finally they were asked to choose the image they thought the opposite sex would prefer. The study showed that 80% of the guys were generally satisfied with their body appearance. However 90% of the women thought that they were much larger than they actually were. Most of the women also reported that they felt men wanted really thin women. It was found that men claimed to be attracted to women with a hip to waist ratio of 3%, large or thin. Rozin and Fallon concluded that many of these students have an idea of what the perfect body should be and they are all striving for it even though it doesn t exist. Their findings pointed to, what is known as body image distortion. This can cause enormous conflict and feeling of powerlessness.

Steven Blair of Cooper Institute for Aerobic research, in Dallas Texas, did a study in 1998 on man named David Alexander. This man is 5 foot 8 inches, 245lbs and has been told that he is 100lbs over weight. However at the time of this study, he was in preparation to swim 5 miles, run 30 miles and bike 200 miles in a triathlon. He has been in 264 of them and even thought he hasn t won any, he does finnish. According to Blair his resting heart rate was 60, which is very normal but his working pulse rate is 120 over 80 which concludes him to be an elite athlete regardless of his size. This study concluded that not only is it possible to be fat and fit at the same time but morality rates amung large people with high level of fitness are lower than that of skinny, inactive people.

The national Institute of health did a study on the Pima Indians of Arizona. The Pima s have lived in Arizona for 2000 years on the banks of a river called the Gila River. At the turn of the century, white settlers diverted Gila River and the Pima s were almost whipped out. This lead to severe poverty for the Pima Indians. In 1984, however, the Pima s were granted the first casino license in the state of Arizona, and with in 4 years they became the richest native population in America. Unfortunately they also became the fattest population and suffered from such problem as high blood pressure, forms of cancer, diseases of the joints and the most difficult to believe, 80% of the Pima s have non-congenital diabetes. The conclusion made from the study of the Pima s is that their collective metabolism was still pre 1984 but with their enormous wealth their levels of food intake has quadrupled and their metabolism hasn t caught up.

Were not all California girls, but we all have something greater to offer. The bombardment of advertising containing models that probably didn t even eat that day is enormous. We all want to be something that were not. The traditional attitudes towards diet, body image, and fitness in the past have made many people so obsessed with looking perfect, that they go as far as putting their lives in danger. Studies where done by Paul Rozen and April Fallon to see how the populations views their body and how they should look, Steven Blair took the time to re think fitness in his study on David Alexander and finally the Pima Indians of Arizona and our collective metabolism. People have to realize that what they see on the television and in the magazine only represents a very small amount of the population. They need to accept that the only way they will feel good about themselves is not by being skinny but by having the confidence to show the world who they really are.