A Short History of The "Ideal" Female Body

1639 – The Three Graces; Pieter Pauwel Rubens

1887 – Pierre Auguste Renoir, The Bathers

1920 – Thin, short haired flapper.

1950 – Marylin Monroe (Size 14)

Update: MAM885 says

I’ve read in a couple very reliable sources (women’s fitness magazines) that Monroe’s “size 14″ is comparable to a size 8 today, due to vanity sizing and such.

1960 – Twiggy Lawson (Aka the beginning of the end.) This was the first time in history that an under weight woman became the standard for the ideal body image.

1970’s – Karen Carpenter (Died in 1983 from heart failure as a complication of Anorexia Nervosa)

1988 – Cosmopolitan

2002 – Harper’s Bazaar

Modern day Fashion Model

Quick point of reference for that last one:

1944 – Nazi Holocaust Victim