The World Has Curves: The Global Quest for the Perfect Body Book

Warning: long, and rife with semi-relevant history geekery!

When I initially requested this book from the First Reads program, it was from a long-standing interest in body image and related issues, as well as a more general interest in learning about cultures unfamiliar to me. When I saw that the book was published by Rodale, who also publishes Prevention magazine and its related publications, I was a bit concerned that I might have requested a diet book in disguise, but luckily, such was not the case. Instead, Savacool's book is a generally well-researched discussion of the economic importance of having the "perfect body" and how and why the definition of perfection varies from place to place.

Body image, food, and weight can all be touchy subjects, and thus I'd imagine very difficult to write about with objectivity. Savacool puts forward her thesis---that in the US, having a "perfect body" is a sign of social status and economic success---as a fact neither to be censured nor admired, and concludes that the gap between the average woman's figure and her ideal body is not likely to disappear soon. In chapters 4 through 9, she examines the ideal women's body in such diverse areas as China, Afghanistan, and Figi, including personal accounts from women of different generations in each region, and relating their experiences to the culture and social reality of the region. In South Africa, for example, thinness is looked down on and weight loss is feared as a sign of ill health due to the high prevalence of HIV. In Japan, where the traditional ideal is both reflected in and shaped by the kimono, younger women have embraced a more stream-lined yet surgically enhanced figure to distance themselves from tradition and the past. I really enjoyed reading these women's stories, and very much appreciated that Savacool did not pass judgment on the various body ideals, the philosophies behind them, or the means used to achieve them.

Every reader brings certain biases with them when they pick up a book, and I found I had a really difficult time setting mine aside while reading The World Has Curves, but not in the way you might think. Like I said, this is not a diet book, and Savacool's objective stance meant that I did not feel that my own body was either being praised or under attack (I think no matter what your figure type, there is a place mentioned in this book where it would be considered lovely). However, Savacool's attempt to contextualize women's body issues in the West begins with the ancient Greeks, and despite consulting with or at least quoting a couple professors of Classics, her discussion is somewhat shallow and contains one rather big mistake.* The section in which Savacool discusses the Greeks is very brief, and the error means almost nothing to her argument; I could argue that messing up on Vitruvius does not necessarily mean she will commit similar errors when discussing the Taliban or Chairman Mao. However, the cursory consideration of the Greeks troubles me for two reasons:
1. Is it really possible to discuss the predominance of the Greek male nude in sculpture and painting and not mention Greek pederasty? ** Because Savacool does, and that's odd. More importantly, for the purposes of this study. . .
2. There actually are a lot of nude women in Attic vase-paintings, but they are primarily prostitutes, i.e. slaves or former slaves, non-citizen women. Had Savacool done a bit more research, she might have noticed that NOT having one's body on display or visible was the (often unattainable) ideal for Athenian women, and that this ideal was seen to reflect upon their males-fathers, husbands, custodial brothers or uncles, etc. Knowing this would have given Savacool some interesting comparative material, and not just most obviously for modern societies that practice veiling, i.e. Afghanistan. In South Africa, Savacool's subjects say, a man cares for his women by keeping her well fed; in Classical Athens, he cared for them by keeping them out of sight.

Aside from my Kim-specific curmudgeonry about the Classical material, the other area in which I did feel Savacool fell a little short was when she tried to synthesize the material she presented into a coherent whole. Each chapter from 4 through 9 could, with very little reworking, be made to stand on its own as an article, and they also followed after each other and related to the thesis nicely. However, when she got to her conclusion, in which one generally restates the thesis and offers further insight, Savacool seemed to drop her objectivity in favor of advocacy, specifically of a more active and fit ideal. While I agree that this is a more empowering image than we typically see in the media these days, I was a bit dismayed that Savacool could have done all this research into very diverse notions of beauty and come up with a single "ideal ideal." Many of the women she interviewed are aware that their individual body types don't fit with cultural norms, and Savacool herself predicts that the gap between American women and their ideal figures will only widen, yet she calls for a "happily positive, proactive future: a society in which women aspire to be slim and strong, and one that has moved beyond that quaint time in our past where simply being skinny was good enough to call yourself a success" (p. 189). For me, that "positive, proactive future" must also include an awareness that women's bodies come in diverse shapes and sizes, and an understanding that, however healthy it is, there were always be problems with having a single ideal.


*She claims that the Roman Vitruvius is "credited with inspiring Phidias's works" (p. 28); rather impossible, given that Vitruvius lived in the 1st century BC and Phidias four centuries before him!
**In the 21st century, that is; I'm sure the more homophobic societies of the past did so most of the time!