This is true for me personally

I'm not sure this is what's going on. Seeing very skinny people might make us hungry--if you think about it, in paleolithic times, your neighbour might have been as good as a mirror--if you were starving, chances are, your tribemates were starving as well. Seeing skinny people could be a signal of lean times, there might be hormonal responses to this. This might lead, among other things, to a rejection of the idea that being leaner is attainable. Maybe there's sort of a mirror of this, in anorexics who see themselves as fat. I know I've experienced "sympathetic hunger"--when my grandmother lost her appetite in the hospital, for a month or so when she died. Or when I spend too much time on the blogs of emaciated fruitarians.

Skinny girls got no wiggle.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

There've been times in my life where on the same day, the same mirror would present one time a too skinny body, and at another a fat one. To skinny, I'd panic and eat, to fat, I'd vow to do better with the weight-loss.

My mirror shows 2 different things too, sometimes I look great with only a little extra and other times I look huge. Was at Hardees and I swore that mirror gave me chubby cheaks.

I don't like seeing those anorixic/super skinny models, just because of my own self perception issues. I believe guys really like to see the skinny girls even if they "don't have wiggle" I want to be fit and slim, with a nice amount of fat on my bones to give "wiggle" but no so much that I spill out over the top of my jeans.

Gosh I hardly even see skinny models. Sometimes on TV they look gaunt but the things I watch have regular people on. If I don't consume the media that features them I don't have to see them.

Unhealthy looking models remind me of the ugly mean stepsisters in Cinderella. Remember in the Grimm story, what they did to be pretty and attract the Prince who found the glass slipper? One cut off her toes to fit in the glass slipper, and the other cut off her heel. The prince was clued in by the blood. What kind of body abuse do today's ugly sisters do.

Same here. In fact, I've noticed more and more that heavier people are being featured in popular television programs - and not as the goofy, failure sidekick, either. There are also examples of heavier young women in popular music culture now, as well. There are also plenty of people in the media who are neither heavy or gaunt. I don't think the gaunt look is the norm, and I don't think that MOST people think it's the expectation. As for men, just like women, they all have different likes and dislikes. I've known plenty of men who do not like the super-skinny look at all. When I was younger and very slender, I had my share of men tell me I was "too skinny," so I know that they're not all looking for the very skinny type.

Yeah, not all of them do. Back in my 20s I once briefly dated a guy whose ex-wife was a fashion model, a real one, had been featured in Vogue magazine, one of those haughty types with hollow cheeks and jutting hipbones. I was no fashion model. That was before I injured my knee at age 30 and began to out on serious weight, but I was still about a size 12/14. I thought he was spoofing when he asked me out. I was self-conscious about my body. But he claimed that he liked a woman who felt like a woman to him, a little roundness in hips and belly and breasts - and not all bones and angles.

Of course he *had* married the model, . But there are men who don't want all women to be a size 0.

They want the model to hand on their arm and be "there" and the want the real woman to make love too???

I don't see many gaunt skinny models, they are showing more and more people on TV at a "real" size and larger, which is a real size

If guys want more curves, why do they like sports illistrated when they've got the girls in it? They are tiny, skinny, board thin with boobs. But if their were real women in the pics, men wouldn't get nearly excited.

Weren't we discussing the mirror effect though?

Probably has to do with why some larger women frown at the skinny woman, perhaps want them to gain weight?

It's a matter of taste. I don't like Ryan Gosling -- don't find him attractive at all. Some men might prefer this or that in a woman. That's not really the point, though. The study was asserting that images of skinny women can make average or overweight women fatter. I really believe it. I'm probably biased in believing it because its true for me personally. Someone mentioned a subconscious desire to eat because of starvation fears -- maybe. I don't find myself wanting to eat ANYTHING when watching The Biggest Loser, so that's kind of an opposite effect.

Ok, when I see a super skinny "gaunt" woman, I don't want to eat more. It does make me want even more to be more slender, but not to eat more.

I agree. This is my reaction also.


plus we are chatting about model pics? what about the real world. I am surrounded by thin people. I don't want to eat more seeing.

When I see pretty thin models in pics I think of AGE. not weight mostly. I get that pang of 'wish I was 18,19 again when I looked like that!'

Oh gosh, I remember those days! I rode horse and did farm work, the muscles I had!

I hear you. But I think it was because of emulating the super skinny models back then (Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton) that I kept myself unhealthily super skinny too. These days looking at a 16 year old model made up to look like a 30 year old woman in a glamorous evening dress and expensive jewellery doesn't impress or discourage me at all. It's just advertising smoke and mirrors designed to make money off the gullible. Of course she's thin, she's still growing! And the older ones who have maintained their thinness, er...lines of coke anyone? No, that whole world is fake and dangerous - I speak from being part of it back in the day.

I'm particularly amused when they use 20 year olds to sell wrinkle cream.

The slim, healthy looking women around me in real life, now they are impressive to me, especially if they are older.