Latoya’s comments were fascinating and familiar to me, although the context was completely foreign. I live in Mainland China, and the current beauty standard for woman is emaciated and malnourished. The irony is that it was created not by Chinese men, who (in my experience) prefer fuller-bodied women, but by Western MNCs selling beauty projects, and it is enforced by a highly competitive, perfectionist society and especially by women themselves. Classic is one anorexic woman friend of mine who when I tried to recruit her to try a gym instead of diet pills explained, “Lisa, muscles look good on white women, but bad on Chinese women; we have to be slender and willowy!” And woe to the curvy Chinese woman who does not have the typical angular build!

It also provides a constant source of frustration to me, as a white woman living here. I’d be considered thin in America: a 5′1, curvy, very athletic size 4. (And yes, the irony of using clothing size as self-defining noun…) Every single time I walk into a clothing store, I am handed an XXL, and unhilarity ensues as I try to get the small I actually wear, being told, “You’re too fat. You’ll rip it.” I feel like there’s an assumption that white person=obese which registers before they even look at me.

Not that this is relevant much in the American context. My point is that body image and body stereotypes are pretty universal both within and between races.