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Oh hey everybody. This week on Ask Cristen I'm talking about why women's body shapes
are often compared to fruits and vegetables so for instance I'm a corn. Kind of straight
up and down and I got some, uh, real cool hairdo. Uh, uhhh. Ewww. Actually, oh.
This week's Ask Cristen question comes from Liz Bailey who wants to know, 'Why do we compare
body shapes of people to the shape of fruit? Where did this come from and why did it stick
around?' Before we had all of this fruit to guide us there was really just one shape that
mattered: the hourglass. A 0.7 waist to hip ratio. That's supposed to be the most attractive
to straight men. Of course there are all sorts of scientific theories about how this waist
to hip ratio isn't just a matter of fashion but rather it's all signaling reproductive
fitness and reproductive fitness then translates to *** attractiveness. When it comes to
the fruits the Oxford English dictionary traces pear-shaped, not in the since of failure--apparently
British viewers please fill me in on that--when it comes to the fashion context, OED traces
that back to merely 1993, the context being how to disguise an unattractive pear-shape.
I think that's the biggest problem that a lot of women have with this persistent tendency
to put women into these fruit shaped boxes based on a vague idea of their body shape
because what usually follows are recommendations on how to minimize and disguise, make you
look as much like that idealized hourglass as possible. Not to say that better fitting
clothes don't make us look better overall, but if the underlying message is to try to
look like something you're not using clothes that's only perpetuating a lot of body anxiety.
Trying to fit a mold that's unrealistic in the aggregate. There are also body shape guidelines
like this for men but rather than comparing them to fruit, guys bodies are compared to
sporting equipment so you can either be a baseball bat, a football or a basketball.
Actually it's even weirder than that. Guys are either ectomorphs, endomorphs and mesomorphs.
If anything dudes you have us beat because that just sounds way cooler than being a pear.
And while I already revealed to everyone that I am a corn-shape, I found a quiz online to
tell me what body shape I am. Question number one: What is your favorite part of your body?
My answer would be my clever brain. Which celebrity has your dream figure? Obviously
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Not on here. What best describes your body?
Um, as a vehicle to carry my brain around in. Where's the first place you gain weight?
Where do the pizza rolls go? If you could change one thing about yourself what would
it be? Richer? What's your go-to outfit for a night on the town? How is this going to
tell me what my body shape is? Oh ha! I'm not kidding you, this says my body shape is
a ruler. 'The challenge for you is the lack of curves'--thanks a lot--'so you'll need
to create them for yourself. Opt for a detailed top to create the illusion that something's
there. Wearing a wide leg also helps provide fullness for the lower body.' I didn't even
realize how annoyed I was by this whole body shape thing until I took this quiz which is
basically telling me what I should feel bad that I don't have. This is just so representative
of these kinds of lies, that yes it sells us clothes and it sells us makeup and it sells
us gym passes that we'll never fully utilize and it sells us these lies that regardless
of whatever kind of fruit or vegetable you might most resemble, something's wrong with
you. So with that, I now want to know from you listeners, what do you think about comparing
body shapes to fruits and vegetables and household objects like rulers? Do you think that it's
ridiculous, do you think that it can be helpful for learning how to dress to your body? Let
me know in the comments below. Thanks everybody who watched and commented on last week's Ask
Cristen video 'Is taking a break really breaking up?' Amanda Vanaman commented, 'Back when
my husband and I were just dating about 2 years into it he got super depressed. How
it worked for us was 2 weeks of no communication at all, it was incredibly hard but worth it.
8 years later we are married and more in love every day.' For grapicnovellife things did
not work out quite so well. 'Just recently my BF (now ex) asked if we could "take a break".
We were already in a long distance relationship and I couldn't see how this would make things
better. I told him if he felt like he needed to break up, then we should just do it. And
what do you know! He broke up with me. I don't personally believe breaks can work. In my
personal experience since both of m exes have suggested doing this, they are just either
cop-outs for having to say how they really feel or using them as tools to manipulate
and saying that I will come back around.' If you have questions about fruit-shaped bodies,
breakups or anything else completely unrelated you know where to go. Ask them in the comments
below so I can give you some answers.