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K-A-Markon
Preference for fatness or thinness is mainly culture-based and has a lot to do with economic conditions. Where there is not a lot of food to go around, a plump body may be preferred over a slender body. During the early part of this century, a lot more people died of malnutrion and starvation than from overeating. Today things are just the opposite. In those days, plumpness would be a sign of economic success – a sign that one could eat all they needed and did not have to do a lot of bone-breaking labor. Today plumpness would be seen as a sign that one had to eat a lot of cheap, high-carbohydrate food and could not afford membership in a health club. I don’t believe, however, that an extremely obese body would have been seen as attractive at that time, either.