Over time, female mentality, culture, and societal perception have shaped women’s physique. The Greek spells out that the physical beauty ideal is with broader waists and Venus de Milo figures which were highly esteemed at the turn of the century. The beauty essence was situated in the inside considering the state of health, wholeness, as well as harmony. In the earlier days beauty entailed expression of physical excellence and purity, of health and clean blood, vitality and above all, efficiency but today this notion of women physique has changed into perfectionism thus more perfect physical appearances are, the more beautiful it is. Moving into the new century, women have gained strength, both physically and politically have seen the new social construct of their appearance.
Cultural perspective
The images painted by fairy tales have impacted on the society definition of beauty and ideal shape. Normally, in European culture, the fairies have sleek slender and attractive bodies. Thus the society derives the idealism of body shape from them. Then again in America culture, the debut of Barbie dolls in 1959 has also played a part in the societal view about women physique. The Barbie dolls were developed after a teen fashion icon (Guðnadóttir & Garðarsdóttir, 2014) . Also, the body size of the Barbie Doll consisted of the lengthened neck, the larger bosoms, and the ultrathin waist giving a false impression of woman’s physique which has been passed from generation to generation ( Rice, Prichard, Tiggemann & Slater, 2016). In Barbie dolls and fairy tales culture we see that young girls are introduced at a very tender age in the dilemma of a societal version of attractiveness which is not a good thing at all. These introduce girls to a series of oppression about themselves as the culture has placed appearances more pronounced in women. As much as, on the other hand, it represents femininity, the exaggerated form has adversely affected individuals who do not fit in that category.
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Ideal body image Mentality
Body image perfection is all in mind. Unlike the society before today’s society is overly obsessed with thinness and associate fatness will bad, lazy, ugly and carelessness ( Pickett & Cunningham, 2017). We should understand that the overemphasis not only affects the ‘fat’ women but also it serves as social as well as psychological restraint for the entire womanhood. The fear of getting fat is rampant in society, and it can be held responsible for the existing masochistic pursuit heading for slim bodies. We are the enemy of self as we embody a culture that is virtually obsessed to self-control and the perception exists in the society that fatness connotes loss of self-discipline which is regarded as the cultural definitive moral crisis. This body shape obsession has been toned down to the multi-billion dollar diet industry which is capitalizing on women insecurities (Guðnadóttir & Garðarsdóttir, 2014). The industry does not leave anything to chance as they enjoy the women enslavement into their obsession on the weight, physique beauty, and dieting practices. Within the industry structure, they have emerged health clubs, spas, diet supplements, diet books and foods, lifestyle newspaper and magazine articles, and increasingly high numbers of weight loss experts in the field than before and more ironically obesity cases are still on the rising end ( Toffoletti, Francombe-Webb & Thorpe, 2018). Seemingly the persons benefitting from this obsessions is the cosmetic and diet industry who are making a substantial amount of money. Overall, the message sent across these advertising industries is that women are not accepted naturally as they are, not unless with a little ‘pimping (Lupton, 2017).’ Likewise, t here are four most common body shapes that women associate themselves with, as they struggle to acquire the perfect body. The Apple shape women have wide shoulders and bigger bust size with narrow hip and generally the look triangular downwards. The Banana or straight shape women generally look rectangular and have their waist measurement less than 9 inches slighter than the measurement of both the hips and bust. The pear, spoon or bell-shaped women have their measurement of hip broader than bust measurement as they look triangular upwards. Lastly, the Hourglass shape, they have a narrower waist with bust and hip in an almost equal measurement ( Pickett & Cunningham, 2017) . In line with the study which over 6000 women participated, it indicated that only over 20 percent has pear shape; fewer than 14 percent had an apple shape, and just a bunch of 8 percent of the women had an hourglass shape ( Lupton, 2018) . According to Lupton, (2018) , normally the idolized and widely accepted shape as an ideal figure in the western countries is the hourglass shape
An interview with a woman
In many instances, obese women face many challenges on their day to day lives. Being in the public domain or a public figure is a reason enough for women to try to shape up to meet the social ideals of a perfect body. Most celebrities and media personalities can attest to this as the encounter this ‘ideal body shape crisis throughout their life. The critics from their fans and the public would want them to maintain that body shape for as long as body shape ideals linger on women’s minds (Guðnadóttir & Garðarsdóttir, 2014). We should also acknowledge there many factors that make these celebrity’s body fluctuate for instance pregnancy, taking up movie roles one has to gain weight or lose weight to fit in certain roles. The media has played a quite massive role when it comes to women celebrity body perfections. It has made them idols in which many women would want to form a comparison with, as a measure of ideal body shape (Bailey, Cline & Gammage, 2016). Tall, slender, ultrathin waist, flat tummies is what the media depict as perfect shape contrary to that, one is subjected to scorn and criticism for having distorted bodies. When I interviewed Miss Katy, not her real name she explained to me the critics she encountered from the public regarding her plus-size body. In the onset of her music and acting career, she presented an image of plumpness which she maintained in the first years of her career. With the increased critic she could not bear it anymore, so she had to do something about her. She sought advice from her nutritionist, weight watching program and finally comes down to integrate exercises and proper dieting. She further admitted to me that it was a very traumatic journey for her, but she was strong-willed and determined to reach her ultimate goal. When she eventually appeared to the public, she could not fail to capture the minds of many for her tremendous weight loss from size 16 to 6 with loss of 80 pounds. As a result, she offered free advice for those women struggling from weight gain issues and also struggling for acceptance, her major advice to them was to stay healthy and if they felt like losing extra weight made them happy they should pursue it ( Guðnadóttir & Garðarsdóttir, 2014) . Miss Katy also emphasized that losing weight require dedication and consistency as well as a substantial change in lifestyle and abandoning old unhealthy habits.
A standalone interview with a trainer who can talk about some of the challenges women face
The standalone interview featured Dina a motivational speaker, fitness expert, and gym trainer. The interview took us through the journey and experiences of Dina as she shed light on the challenges women face and she advises how to rise above those challenges ( Boyd & Murnen, 2017) . In her society, Dina is a major source of inspiration as she lives by the mettle for never settling for less than complete personal happiness, refusing to acknowledge limitation that frustrates one's goal, and lastly, she acknowledges that success requires consistency. Her determination to empower other women comes after she was able to overcome her limitation. In the interview, Dina went ahead to give us her life story, when she was around 21 she gained around 35 kilos in a year, from that point she realized she had become overweight and leading an unhealthy lifestyle. In the effort of remedying the situation, she devoted her time and energy to exercising and dieting. In that struggle, she becomes too extreme to the point that she was overdoing the whole thing where she dramatically lost weight and become underweight. She was completely disturbed with her state as she becomes unhealthy. To reverse the situation she started applying a variety of exercise for muscles and stamina which indeed worked out well (Bailey, Cline & Gammage, 2016) . As an America woman in a patriarchal society, she explains the opposition in which she encounters from men and fellow women as they do not desire to lift weights and grow muscles. However, she encourages women who want to take her path to be brave and follow their desire, after all, what makes them comfortable is what that matters ( Pickett & Cunningham, 2017) . Dina observed that women had fear which hindered their participation in exercising and workout. Their major fear is the development of muscles, but she goes ahead to clarify that there are a variety of exercises, for instance, bodybuilding weightlifting which does not necessarily grow muscles. She did not limit women to certain types of exercises as it depends on body goals thus she the general advice she gives women is to apply a variety of exercises for fitness ( Toffoletti, Francombe-Webb & Thorpe, 2018) . Equally, she articulates that being muscular is not a bad, as it does not distort the feminine quality of women for it an indication that one is fit and strong. In body shape and weight concerns, Sommer advice change in habit and mentality will solve the bigger dilemma facing women. Disposing of the fixed mindsets about fitness, insecurities about body shape will make an individual have positivity in every aspect of life, and the bottom-line is to remain healthy.
The increase in numbers of gym and diversity of training and classes, and maybe why there are women-only classes
The mushrooming gyms cater for different needs of women as far as their physique is concerned. The increasing gym goers are not age-specific as all the women with fitness concern can use the gyms (Robinson et al. 2017). There is also diversified training needs in women as they have particular goals in mind which they want to fulfill. Those with the aim of trimming tummy fat will mostly involve the exercise of the upper body on the road to the desired results. Sommer Ray, a pro-fitness Instagram model, has placed many women on their toes to attain the wonderful body figure she posses. She articulates that a good women physique is composed of a tiny waist and larger butts to have the idea shape With more than 18, 235, 249 Instagram followers, definitely she is making a huge impact on many lives more so the women who are in pursuit of the perfect figure (Bailey, Cline & Gammage, 2016). At a maximum, R ay hits the gym around five times weekly and spends up to 90 minutes in an alternating mode to give the body time to recuperate. From the five days, she uses two of the days, to work on lower body for the ultimate booty goal. To that edge, she maintains that there is no specific workout routine for gym goers to practice (Sobal, 2017) . She carries on to state that there are no specific exercises that are beneficial; integrating a variety of exercises is more beneficial for the trainee.
Conversely, e xercises have been diversified for women to meet their specific needs. The variety of activities that women can engage in focuses on a specified exercise regimen and fitness elements, for example, aerobic exercising, core workouts, strength and balance training and stretching ( Lupton, 2018) . Many women with aims of achieving that ideal body goal tend to shy off in an exercise that makes the grow muscles or gain weight instead opt for exercises to cut down weight and those focused giving them that ideal shape ( Pickett & Cunningham, 2017) . More women are now enrolling for gym classes spending an extra long hour in the struggle to get into shape; some women may fail to recognize what they are primarily doing is that they are hurting themselves. Others get malnourished, worn out as a beginning of their health crises all in the name of getting into shape the whole fitness thing is highly overrated.
An interview with a typical man and how they like to see women in “perfect” bodies
In line with, Bailey, Cline & Gammage, (2016) across the world have revealed an ideal body shape of women that man prefers which is slim, thin waist and at least with slightly bigger behinds. In the interview featuring various men in the streets of Houston, American men came clean on the preference of women body type they desire. The majority of the individual interviews by the men in the video exposed that most of them preferred moderate skinny type compared to chubby ones and with the emphasis of bigger butts and chest, skinny legs. Of course what men think of women perfect shape is the biggest nightmare in women’s lifestyle and appearances (Sobal, 2017). Women always crave for acceptance in society. Thus they will do what is necessary to acquire the ideal shape that men would desire.
Conclusion
At the end of all this chaotic phenomenon, the inner struggles and the societal expectation cloud women judgments. Understanding the desires inside us makes it harder to object to the commercial appeal that empowers women to have the desires of the perfect body. To the largest extent, it has permitted consumerism power to be applied as a resolution of these dilemmas, instead of a contributory factor of women lacking self as well as body confidence. The desire for healthy living is increasingly indispensable. However in this edge where health is also seen as consumer practice associated with identity and the ability to live up to the ideal shape our vision of healthy existence is completely blurred. Sadly the life worth living appears to be far beyond our reach.
References
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Lupton, D. (2017). Digital media and body weight, shape, and size: an introduction and review. Fat Studies , 6 (2), 119-134.
Lupton, D. (2018). Fat . Routledge.
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