Ideal Body Type Essay

A. Introduction

Body is the first criteria for judging attractiveness of a person at first sight. For every community has their own history and cultural background, their ideal body types varies. However due to globalization, flow of culture is allowed among countries. Thus situations in other countries may have impact on ideal body types in Hong Kong society. This essay focuses on the ideal body types in Hong Kong, as well as how these are perpetuated via various aspects. Lastly, body modification would be discussed based on Bartky’s reading.

B. Ideal Body Types in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a special colonial city where East meets West. With the impact of both Chinese and Western culture, both Chinese and Western ideas of beauty exist in the

Since we were small, we are being affected by the spread of thin-ideal body type, from Disney cartoons and Barbies, to celebrities and zero-sized models.

Children 's media perpetuates the "what is beautiful is good" stereotype through its portrayals of characters. The thin beautiful young lady Barbie became role models for young girls during the development of their self-concept (CityU). Content analysis done on children’s videos and books found that most videos emphasized on physical attractiveness. Moreover, thin characters have desirable traits and vice versa for obese characters (Herbozo, Tantleff-Dunn, Gokee-Larose, and Thompson, 2004).

The fat stigmatization is also found in television (Greenberg, Eastin, Hofschire, Lachlan, and Brownell, 2003). This situation is observed when celebrities shared their methods of weight losing and their views towards being skinny. Kate Moss famously stated “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. Gillian Chung went viral with her public declarations that ”skinnier is better,” and in one frank interview revealed how she regularly consumes only health supplement drinks and on many days does not actually eat at