I had the pleasure of walking along Holloway road to get my puncher fixed the other day and I was struck by how unhealthy people looked and it crossed my mind that they obviously don't eat their fruit and veg around here, unlike the many a fit bloke I often see doing the green lanes strutt for their avacardos and water melons. However, as for Mr. Viren I think he's been at the kebabs a bit too much, it will have to be Troll number 1 for me
Beautiful+Person != A Beautiful Person. I use the term BP to denote someone who is yes, probably quite nice to look at BUT they know they are and they're obsessed. They're usually quite shallow too. Good fun when you're people watching though.
John, BP is another (old) media term that sucks as much as the survey we're talking about. You spend too much time in the city watching the boys in suits. ;)
Leaving aside the unfortunate doctor who has been well and truly dismissed by the ladies of Harringay, I agree with you FP that defining beautiful is very hard. I do worry that these days, the definitions of beauty seem to centre around underweight, white teenagers (and the 'celebs' who try to emulate them) whose images bombard our girls (and boys) at every turn. Luckily , I'm old enough to be beyond all that, but as the mother of a little girl I worry that eventually, despite my efforts, the media message will permeate. That people perceive rich to equal beautiful as this study suggests is depressing so that in the end we end up with the anorexic, vacuous doll that is Victoria Beckham as the suggested role model for our girls. Sometimes, I feel like my elder sisters burned their bras for nothing.
Ah no, I would suggest most 'grown ups' don't find or are even interested in media definitions of beauty but the young and very impressionable are influenced by such things. A recent programme working with very young children 'A child of our time' discovered that girls were already talking about weight and diet in negative terms (and boys were identifying with very stereotyped overly macho role models) and wanting to be underweight. Go into any newsagent and 'curvy' women are only seen on lads mags usually with their clothes missing.
On the front of every other type of magazine at eye level are pictures of anorexic celebs or stupid headlines about people being 'overweight'. We should not kid ourselves that our children do not see or understand these messages, research suggests otherwise.