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Origins of the Idealized Female Body Image A Historical Perspective “Everyone is born into a culture - a set of shared ideas about the nature of reality, the nature of right and wrong, evaluation of what is good and desirable, and the nature of good and desirable versus the bad and non-desirable.” Female concern with appearance is not just an aberration of modern western culture. Every culture has its own history and standards of what is and is not beautiful, and every contemporary society has its own distinctive concept of the ideal feminine physical attributes. The definition of desirable, with regard to female body image, has spanned rotund to emaciated, with various ideals in-between. And, the methods for achieving the desirable, idealized image of the times have been equally as varied. The word “fat” was not always a slur. The Latin word for fat is related to "optimous" which means "fertile" or "copious." In Greek it is related to "pidyein" which means "to gush forth" and from Sanskrit "fat" is translated to "robust". Some English definitions include, “well filled out, of sizable proportions, fruitful, substantial, impressive” and “the richest or best part of anything." Different body shapes have be