ABSTRACT
This chapter explores cross-cultural and historic differences in weight ideals in relation to food supply. It describes the functions of body modification and decoration cross-culturally, and discusses the main dimensions along which such practices vary. Ideals for the body, including its height, weight, and shape, and the ways in which it can be decorated, modified, and sculpted, have been around for a long, long time. The biocultural context in which particular ideals are created and maintained as well as the varied cascade of biocultural effects they may have contribute to the range of human biocultural diversity. While the body can be used, as John Bull’s was, to express pro-social and pro-cultural values, it also can be used to mark and so warn against nonconformity. Each culture has a preferred body build. For reasons later reviewed, bigger has often been viewed as better, but not always across the board.
