"Defining a universal standard of body beauty once seemed a fool's dream; common sense said that if spindly Twiggy and
Rubens's girthy Three Graces could all excite admiration, then nearly anyone could. But if our ideals of size change from one
time and place to the next, our taste in shapes is amazingly stable. A low waist-hip ratio is one of the few features that a long,
lean Barbie doll shares with a plump, primitive fertility icon. And Singh's findings suggest the fashion won't change any time
soon. In one study, he compiled the measurements of Playboy centerfolds and Miss America winners from 1923 to 1990.
Their bodies got measurably leaner over the decades, yet their waist-hip ratios stayed within the narrow range of .68 to .72.
(Even Twiggy was no tube; at the peak of her fame in the 1960s, the British model had a WHR of .73.)"