Now I know why they’re referred to as “The Good Old Days.”

While cleaning house recently, I ran across an issue of Woman’s World from November 1933. (And no, smart aleck. It hasn’t been that long since the last time I cleaned.) Of course, such a find called for an immediate break from my work so I could peruse the pages, and upon doing so, I ran across the following ad:

“Special quick way to put pounds on fast!”

Huh? People actually once wanted to do that? I read on.

“Now there’s no need to have people calling you ’skinny,’ and losing all your chances of making and keeping friends. Here’s a new, easy treatment that is giving thousands healthy flesh and attractive curves–in just a few weeks!”

The clever copywriter continued. “Day after day, as you take Ironized Yeast, watch ugly, gawky angles fill out, flat chests develop, and skinny arms and legs round out attractively. Life becomes a thrilling adventure.”

And then the tone turned grave. “Skinniness is a serious danger. Authorities warn that skinny, anemic, nervous people are far more liable to serious infections and fatal wasting disease than the strong, well-built person. So begin at once to get back the rich blood and healthy flesh you need. Do it before it is too late!”

Instead of being ahead of my time, I now realize I’m way behind it instead. My day came and went long before I was here to enjoy it. Back then, I’d have been the picture of robust health. A model of physical perfection. Why, oh why, wasn’t I born in a time when hipbones were meant to be pleasingly padded instead of protruding?

Reading that ad made me wonder when and why our society’s perception of beauty had changed. I have an old picture in my house showing of a long row of–by 1930s standards–bathing beauties. By today’s standards, many in that picture would be considered at least 20 pounds overweight.

In paintings from the 19th century, beautiful women were full-figured. Rubinesque. Even into the 50s, celebrities were curvaceous. Now, the “beauties” are emaciated, sharp-boned. Callista-Flockhart-esque.

In that ad from 1933, it warned that, “skinniness is a serious danger.” I wonder if perhaps it wasn’t the perceived danger of thinness that ended up creating the allure. It was seen as risky and dangerous, and therefore appealing. It was something difficult for many to achieve, something only the celebrities or the rich, with their private chefs and personal trainers, could manage. Being skinny became a status symbol.

The public, in their desperation to be just like their gaunt role models, began dieting and exercising to excess. Somehow, skinny became synonymous with healthy, and the women whose figures once would’ve been considered appealingly shapely came to be viewed as rotund. Instead of hearing how pretty they were, they began being told how pretty they could be.

Thankfully, a few celebrities have entered the scene who don’t fit the last few decades idea of standard beauty. There’s no denying that Queen Latifah is anything less than gorgeous, or that Kate Winslet isn’t as glamorous as one of the many starved-looking waifs with coat-hanger collarbones.

The zaftig actress Camryn Manheim wrote “If I am presented with the choice of a rice cake or tiramisu, I know that [fitness guru] Kathy Smith would desperately want me to choose that rice cake. But that’s not living. That’s merely existing. I want to live in a world with tiramisu.”

And I want to live in a world where women like Manheim aren’t devalued for making that choice.

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