Changing BMIs: Playboy v. McDonalds

My coworker, Kim, alerted me to a Wired article about the history of Playmates' changing B.M.Is. In a nutshell, the article shows how one woman plotted every Playmates' BMI against the average woman's BMI for that same year. Not surprisingly, the average woman has gotten larger while Playmates have gotten smaller. But, there is one surprise: while Playmates' BMIs have gotten smaller (including their overall chest measurement), their cup size has remained rather large. So, not only is Playboy selling an unrealistic ideal of a woman, they are promoting plastic surgery to partly obtain this ideal.
This article also made me think about the fact that the average woman is getting BIGGER (as is the average male). It seems pretty likely that we can blame this on fast food, hormones in our meat and dairy, and ridiculous dieting and surgery being promoted more than exercise and eating normally.

As Kim and I discussed, the original ideas of men like Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt were not all that dispicable. Hefner began Playboy as a response to the idea that women had to be asexual, and that sex was solely a means for reproduction - an idea that made talking about sex for pleasure as an extreme taboo, especially for women. In the beginning, Playboy was a space where that "average" secretary or nurse could be photographed in a way that showcased her unexpected sexiness and femininity. Flynt, who grew up in a poor family in smalltown Kentucky, created Hustler for similar [pornographic] reasons, but also as a response to Playboy's focus on white, upper-class men, offering articles that weren't about golf and expensive gizmos.
I have little beef with either of these magazines from that point of view - yet, they both have seemingly evolved into publications that value unrealistic and unobtainable bodies. I also have little patience for those that argue that these are men's arenas, that they should be able to just look at what they want without people nagging at the inappropriateness of it. I do realize that part of the allure is the fantasy, but does fantasy have to mean fake? Further, how much of it is actually what men want to look at, and how much of it is what they are being told is attractive?

The problem is two-fold: 40 years ago, women were, on average, smaller and presumably healthier. These days, people are fighting obesity at appalling rates for various reasons, yet to be considered attractive, women (more than men) must morph themselves into an almost impossible form. It would be nice to think we could get back to the middle ground of healthy weights and proportions as not only the ideal, but the reality.