ABSTRACT
The body has been adored and worshipped in many different forms and sizes throughout the history of mankind. One of the oldest representations of the human form, dating back to the Palaeolithic period, 20,000 to 30,000 B.C., was found in a village on the shores of the Danube and was named the “Venus of Willendorf”. It is the statue of an extremely obese woman with large breasts and an enormous abdomen. It is not known if this was a “real” reproduction of a female body of that era or an idealised version. Obesity, at that time, was conceived as a defence against the dreaded fate of starvation. The appreciation of obesity in women persisted into the Neolithic, Prehistoric, Greek and Babylonian periods. Egyptian sculptures also indicate preference or artistic admiration for women with large pregnant abdomens and heavy hips and thighs (Bruch, 1973).
