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中学时期有一段时间体育测试要测验身高体重比例，作为一个小小的分数计入期末考试总分。比例合格者得3分，偏胖或偏瘦不得分，相当于一道数学选择题的分数。
作为大骨架且进入青春期后就不再纤细的我，身高体重比例一直稳稳落在标准比例中段。不过小伙伴们当时还是偏瘦的居多。大概是对3分无限渴望，在从体育课回教室的路上，一个瘦弱的小个子朋友忿忿地说：符合标准就是胖！
这往日无怨近日无仇的，又是何必…
如果这还能算一个中学生口无遮拦，那后来，这个社会对瘦的追求越来越不加掩饰了，“要么瘦，要么死”等简单粗暴的口号也能流行起来。还有，“一个女人如果连自己的体重都控制不了，何以掌控自己的人生？”
真是无话可说。
小女子无才，既不能掌控自己的人生，更不能掌控自己的体重。深知月有阴晴圆缺时，人在旦夕祸福间的道理，对平安度过的每一天都心存感激，掌控什么的，更是妄谈。
后来A4腰、反手摸肚脐，各种检验瘦的标准层出不穷、节节高升。而这股现代审美之风，也不出意料地刮进了孕妈的生活。
日本是一个和我们一样崇尚纤瘦、骨感、娇小玲珑的审美社会。因此，美国为怀孕妈妈制作的“孕期正常增加体重单位”的参考数据传到日本之后，日本医疗机构又根据本国女性偏瘦、偏小的身体特点，缩水了一些。可即便如此，很多日本准妈妈的目标还是要孕期增加体重在参考体重以下。难道她们也认为符合标准就是胖吗？
孕期增加体重其实一直以来都是一个棘手的问题。以前大家普遍认为怀孕以后要为两个人吃饭，因此一直鼓励孕妈多吃。怀孕的妈妈像吹气球一样鼓起来，并以生出巨大儿为骄傲。后来人们渐渐明白，孕期体重飙升并不是什么对母婴有益的好事，尤其还有科学证据显示怀孕前三个月，体重增加过快还会导致孩子青少年时期的肥胖以及糖尿病的风险。
然而矫枉过正，当骨感风吹到孕妈的生活中，怀孕依然有马甲线、背后看不出怀孕、生产完即以完美身材复出的明星们成了妈妈们追捧的对象。如今时日尚早，还看不出孕期纤瘦有什么后果，但较我们更早追求这一时尚的日本却有迹可循。
与我们的心路历程大致相似，二战后的日本在经济回升、国民休养生息期间，婴儿的体重逐年增加，医生不得不提醒国民巨大儿的安全和健康隐患。1970年后期医生开始建议妈妈减少孕期摄入的卡路里。1995年，美国出台孕期体重增加标准，建议纤瘦的妈妈（BMI 18.5 以下）孕期增长12.7 - 18.1 公斤。这一标准传入日本后，上限被调整至12公斤。但很多日本妈妈仍然努力把体重增长维持在12kg以下。日本妈妈追求的孕期身材是从前看肚皮鼓鼓，从后看婀娜多姿。到2010年，5斤以下的新生儿达到了9.6%.
与此同时，日本国民的身高也在悄然发生变化。从1980年起，新生儿的体重开始下降，而在以后的诸年，日本国民的平均身高也开始下降。70年代末出生的男孩长成后平均身高171.5厘米，但1996年出生的男孩子长成后的平均身高则降至170.8厘米。同期女孩的身高也降低0.2厘米。然而，孕期反应和难产的概率并没有伴随着婴儿的减小而减少。相反，科学家预言，低重儿不但影响身高，还可能在生命中后期影响疾病发病率和最终寿数。
当然，相关不蕴含因果！相关不蕴含因果！相关不蕴含因果！重要的事情说三遍。想证明出生体重与成年身高的具体关系十分复杂，因为个体在成长过程中的变量极多。
那这些研究、以及这篇文章的意义又何在？
以前一直认为人们虽然追求苗条，但目的是爱惜自己的身体，总会有节制。但不曾想已经完全脱离控制，甚至威胁到了未出生的宝宝。我想，与其被各种广告、海报、明星牵着鼻子走，是时候大家停下来思考审美这个问题了。
美是一个不断变化的标准。纵观人类历史，在先秦时期，女人是以高大白胖为美的。《诗经》中著名的描写美女的片段“手如柔荑，肤如凝脂，领如蝤蛴，齿如瓠犀，螓首蛾眉，巧笑倩兮，美目盼兮”是以“硕人其颀”开头的。硕人即高大的人。经历了唐朝的珠圆玉润，宋朝又追捧身轻如燕。每个时期的美都是不同的。
中国在很长一段时间都以小脚为美。三寸金莲配大红鞋，在中国的文学作品里迷倒了多少风流才子。可审美观发展至今，我们不但欣赏不了三寸金莲的美，甚至是厌恶和反感的。今天的我们看不惯，难道说古人都是审美扭曲么？
其实他们也只不过是被当时的审美潮流裹挟的可怜人罢了。
不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中。
自身符合时代审美的标准当然是轻松而幸福的，爱美之心人皆有之。与之而来的方便也是数不胜数。美是看不见的竞争力，大到择偶、择业，小到穿衣打扮，都会有来自于美的软实力。而不符合当下的审美，其实是一件很苦恼和吃亏的事情。当店铺里的鞋子都只有三寸时，一双大脚成了难以掩饰的尴尬；而当街上的衣服都只适合套在瘦瘦的模特身上，普通人就算买了大号也难以穿的好看。是因为人不好看么？不，其实是衣服不合适。但要找到合适的衣服，却很难。
可是，我们的身体明明那么美，真的不忍心让它们在单一的审美观下一再被苛责。
少女时期的玲珑是曼妙、是艺术，而人到中年的凹凸则是生活、是故事。袅娜多姿是青春如歌，可是岁月极美，那岁月流逝印在身体上的痕迹，则是诗。
作为一个生活在大时代里的渺小个体，想改变大众审美难上加难。可每一次的力挽狂澜也确实是人力所为。或许，我们每一个人，都应该为社会审美的多元化做些什么。
比如，看自己合乎中道：符合时代审美是恩赐，不是高人一等，也毋庸哂笑他人；不符合时代审美也不是缺陷，健康快乐地管理自己的身体，人活天地间，自信洒脱，落落大方。与人打招呼不以“最近胖了”“最近瘦了”开头。人生很精彩，话题有很多，评价身材则落了下乘。如果本身有更大的影响力，还可以做更多。小编们无须吹嘘明星们胖了瘦了，读者眼睛没那么毒，看不出来。明星们压力也很大。服装设计师、造型师、海报、广告，都需要更多元的代表。听说好看的皮囊千篇一律，有趣的灵魂万里挑一。可为什么好看的皮囊不能百花齐放？有趣的灵魂不能济济一堂？
不知道当时代发展，十年百年后的人们回看今天，会不会像我们看三寸金莲一样，认为我们对瘦的追求，不仅仅是对自己身体的折磨，而且其实，并不是那么的美。尤其是当这种追求威胁到下一代的健康和外貌时，不知道会不会被称为鼠目寸光和愚蠢至极。
钗光鬓影阶前动，燕瘦环肥不一般。
美，不需要大众疯狂的追捧，只需要个体独特的定义。
Honey I Shrunk the Population
Earlier this year I fell in love with desert plants, specifically cacti and succulents. I know the exact moment it happened: when I came across a desert-themed wedding while casually browsing Facebook. To say that I "fell in love" may not be too accurate, I felt it was something more, like an evocation almost, a rekindling. I thought it called forth what already resided in my spirit, stored away, but ready to burst forth. I thought it was because the three years I'd spent in Arizona in my childhood forever branded me as a desert girl at heart.
I filled our house with cacti and succulents, bought cactus- (and catcus, for what it's worth) themed shirts, bags, pajamas, shower curtains, pens, wall stickers, everything I could get my hands on. It was a love that once discovered, immediately went into full bloom and stayed strong.
However, as I was busy making our home a desert resort in Pennsylvania, I started noticing how desert accessories were literally all over the place. Cactus-themed door mats and mugs in Walmart, saguaro-shaped candles and ring holders at cute furniture stores, succulents on cupcakes, hair clips... Have I really never noticed this before, or is there an actual increase in cactus-merchandise?
Then I come across an Economist article titled "Instead of houses, young people have house plants", that answered all my questions. No, it is not the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon (aka the frequency illusion), millenials are owning more houseplants compared to previous generations, and their favorites? Succulents and cacti.
It seems that instead of calling upon my spiritual desert girl like I had believed, I had merely, again, fallen victim to consumerism and covert advertising.
It is both frustrating and frightening to realize that our loves and tastes and standards are not really our own, but are actually blown hither and thither in whichever way the advertising gods decide to send us. And we float on the tide, blissfully ignorant.
And perhaps the biggest triumph the advertising gods claim is the overwhelming power they have in deciding what is considered “beautiful” and “desirable” in this day and age. And for reasons not revealed to us lesser beings, they have, for now, settled on the slim body type.
Everywhere we turn our heads, we see slim female bodies glorified. Every now and then, we hear horror stories about girls who go too far to lose weight. Of course, what people decide they see as beautiful and what they do with their own bodies are ultimately their choices. But these assertions, in turn, begs questions of their own.
Did we choose this beauty standard?
Are our bodies our own?
Both questions are debatable. Let’s address the latter one first.
Many different philosophies come into play when considering to whom, or if indeed to anyone, we answer to when it comes to the care-taking of our bodies. But hardly anyone will argue that there are specific times in our lives when our health is not only a matter of personal well-being, but also profoundly affects others. One of these times being pregnancy.
Most people will adjust their lifestyles and diets when carrying a baby. The child’s welfare weighs heavy on a mother’s heart. It’s hard to imagine that people’s obsession with slimness will carry into preganancy, but studies show that it apparently does.
Asian cultures are perhaps more obsessed with slenderness than others. Japan has long been criticized for its strict guidelines of suggested weight gains during pregnancy, especially considering the fact that a high proportion of women start their pregnancies already underweight. Suggested weight gains for U.S. underweight mothesr-to-be (those with a BMI of 18.5 or lower) is 12.7 to 18.1 kg (28 - 40lbs). This was adapted to 12kg by the Japanese health ministry. Even so, many Japanese mothers are striving to remain below the already very stringent guidelines. As a result, drastic increases have been seen in the frequency of underweight babies.
Correlating with the increase of underweight babies, the Japanese have also been slowly shrinking in height. Boys born in the late 70’s - a golden period of growth after the war and before the obsession with slenderness - had an average height of 171.5 cm, but the 1996 birth cohort shrunk by 0.7cm. Average height for girls dropped 0.2cm in the same time period.
Smaller babies did not mean easier pregnancies or deliveries, but was found to correlate with shorter adults, and may also have impacts on increasing disease and decreasing longevity.
Of course, it is important to bear in mind that correlation does not equal causation. That being said, it will be extremely difficult to pinpoint underweight births as an actual cause of reduced height, as so many factors contribute to a person's stature both prenatal and postnatal. But this does make us uncomfortably aware of the implications, perhaps extended to even beyond our own lifetimes, of our life choices.
Coming back to the first question, did we choose these beauty standards? Whatever we'd like to think, it may seem that the choice was made for us. Different cultures and times in history have different ideas of beauty. The most notorious of these may be the corset-wearing Victorian women and the feet-binding Chinese women. Both these beauty standards went so far as to mutilate women's bone structures in order to achieve the desired curves or feet size. Looking back now, we find bound feet far from attractive, bordering on mildly disgusting. But this does not make us any more enlightened than those who lived a century ago. They've simply been caught by a different fashion wave.
The Christian theologian, author and poet C.S. Lewis describes these beauty trends as tricks of the devil:
In a rough and ready way, of course, this question is decided for us by spirits far deeper down in the Lowerarchy than you and I. It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual “taste”. This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers who determine the fashionable type….
At one time we have directed it to the statuesque and aristocratic type of beauty, mixing men’s vanity with their desires and encouraging the race to breed chiefly from the most arrogant and prodigal women. At another, we have selected an exaggeratedly feminine type, faint and languishing, so that folly and cowardice, and all the general falseness and littleness of mind which go with them, shall be at a premium.
At present we are on the opposite tack. The age of jazz has succeeded the age of the waltz, and we now teach men to like women whose bodies are scarcely distinguishable from those of boys. Since this is a kind of beauty even more transitory than most, we thus aggravate the female’s chronic horror of growing old (with many excellent results) and render her less willing and less able to bear children...It is all a fake, of course; the figures in the popular art are falsely drawn; the real women in bathing suits or tights are actually pinched in and propped up to make them appear firmer and more slender and more boyish than nature allows a full-grown woman to be…. As a result we are more and more directing the desires of men to something which does not exist—making the rôle of the eye in sexuality more and more important and at the same time making its demands more and more impossible. What follows you can easily forecast! (2)
As individuals, in reality there is nothing much we can do to change the way beauty is recognized and represented. Still, the least we can do is think of ourselves with positivity. And if we were in a position to influence more things, perhaps it's about time that magazines stopped obsessing about diets and designers started making clothes for average people.
These times will pass, and one day people will look back at us with the same amazement and amusement that we behold Victorian corsets. If we can avoid it, we should.
Beauty is not a religion, but a unique concept. It doesn't need to be worshipped, only individually defined.
中英文皆原创，禁止抄袭转载
Reference
DENNIS NORMILE "Staying slim during pregnancy carries a price" SCIENCE 03 AUG 2018 : 440
(1) Instead of Houses, Young People Have Houseplants. ECONOMIST. Daily Chart
(2) C.S. Lewis. Screwtape Letters.
