ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the battle between the high-fashion industry and Hollywood in promoting two very specific and unique body types—a hyper-skinny fashion model and a shorter, more buxom and curvaceous pin-up girl, respectively. It explores the “mammary madness” of the immediate postwar era. The book focuses on the burgeoning Fat Acceptance Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s through the creation of consciousness-raising groups like the Fat Underground and the National Association to Aid Fat Americans. It demonstrates that just as the ideal body shape transitioned from a woman with curves to an androgynous and shapeless silhouette, the strategies to obtain the model figure changed as well. The book shows how American men opposed the extreme dieting and obsessive techniques their partners subjected themselves to for the sake of fashion and contemporary standards of beauty.
