After all, Scarlett Johanssen is still very much in evidence, and it's impossible to read anything about her without a reference to her curves in all their glory...lips, hips, boobs.

She's certainly not starving herself, she's natural and healthy looking, and she gets plenty of positive press about her body, much more so than the skinny girls do.

whenever anyone promotes the female body people object, when people stop promoting the female body, lots of the same people object

Monica Bellucci? Implants.

Salma Hayek? Implants.

Scarlett--OK, hers are real. I'll give you that.

Keira Knightley--go rent Bend It Like Beckham and tell me she's not naturally thin.

If you ask me, both she and Kate Bosworth (and Kate Hudson, and others) are the ones giving the big fuck-you to Hollywood by not getting implants. Yeah, Kate B. is thin these days, but she's depressed about a break-up. If she were really bending to Tinseltown pressure, she'd have a big fake chest, and she'd have you praising her, celebrating her "curves." Gimme a fucking break. She looked awesome in Blue Crush, but the script included a joke about her flat chest. Ha ha.

Beyonce and J. Lo--now those are naturally curvy women, with chests smaller than their butts. They rock, and they're gorgeous.

But remember, in the Gigli poster, J. Lo's chest was digitally enhanced. They're making her bigger, not smaller--but only one part of her.

Plastic surgery and digital enhancement of chests causes much more body-image problems and health problems than do images of very thin women--especially since big fake tits are celebrated as "curves," and very thin, flat women are criticized.

big bodies get in the way of fun. not attraction. fun.

Being emaciated to the point of malnutrition is clearly a problem. Yet, we also have an obesity epidemic. I agree that we need some pushback from the drastic waif image, but is branding fatness "healthy" a good idea?

I used to be overweight until I took control of my caloric intake. This may sound kind of ridiculous, but it's true, my motivation was sexual pragmatism. I'm not talking about appearance; I couldn't take the nitty-gritty difficulties of being big anymore. I wanted greater flexibility and freedom. I wanted to be held aloft without having to date some muscle-bound monster.

So, thinness has some essential advantages for me. It has been worth it. Limiting caloric intake was not always easy. There can be pain to overcome, and it can be a distraction (on the order of, "am i going crazy?"). But it gets easier (chemicals balance), and the perseverance & results make it worth it. It also helped me gain the perspective necessary to see the addictive relationship I had with eating. The more I ate, the more I had to eat. Now I see people stuck in that rut, riding it into the obese night, where they'll be forced to confront some very real health consequences.

Why do we impose this notion of anorexia on people who break the numerous meal per day mold? Maybe three meals a day was needed back when we ate food that wasn't 90% trans fat laden chemical pastiche, but is it still? I for one think, "no way."

As someone who is naturally thin and has a very high metabolism I'm sorry to say a lot of the press coverage surrounding this makes me feel alienated. I do think the media does not enforce a realistic image of women - whether that be plastering Nicole Richie on the covers of magazines or pitching Pamela Anderson as desirable. But I don't think emphasizing skinny as unhealthy is always the right course of action. Yes there is pressure to be thin but there is also pressure to have breast implants (often associated with being voluptuous). So I beg to differ that the media presents a one-sided view of how women's bodies should be. No naturally thin woman looks like Nicole Richie nor does any naturally voluptuous woman look like Pamela Anderson. In the end, both types (voluptuous or waifish) are not being properly represented. It would be in the interest of women to stop mud-slinging each other's body-types and instead stress on celebrating the diversity of body images - and not pay attention to what men think so much. Personally I'm sick and tired of reading "Real women have curves" and "Voluptuousness is healthy" when i myself am medically healthy. I consider myself a real women whether I have curves or not - and I don't think body size should be a measure stick in defining a "real" woman. I do take offense to comments in articles such as this one where women have to mention that "men will always go for the Scarlett Johanssen types instead of the Kate Bosworths of the world" (as stated by one professional woman in the article - for the record, Kate Bosworth had a 4 year relationship with British heart-throb Orlando Bloom). That hasn't been my experience at least where my boyfriends were concerned and in the end, men, like women have varied tastes. And yes, while there has been scientific suggestion that men place emphasis on physical attraction, it would be important to note that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. In any event I find it disempowering to center this argument around what men like in female bodies anyways - that's where the problem begins.

Yes, I would like to continue to see a diverse group of women being touted as sexy, beautiful, and as the current “ideals” that we can look at and drool over. No matter how many times we have this discussion though, can we please stop targeting one physical characteristic of women in order to praise another? Some women are naturally thin, and that is okay. It’s all a big trade-off. I’m 28, 103 lbs, and a size 0 – I’m also a 32AA, which means that I am proportionally built, but also that I am literally unable to purchase a bra in 75% of stores that carry lingerie, and I haven’t worn a swimsuit in 13 years. My sister is around a size 20, and the most beautiful woman I know; I have wanted to look like her my whole life. Think I wouldn’t give anything to be a size 12 with breasts that matched that size? In a heartbeat. But guess what - I will never be there short of going under the knife and risking my health for the sake of meeting this ridiculous standard. I am always shocked that this same message keeps popping up even in circles like this which cater to women. In every single way progressive-minded women recognize that we are not all the same and that it is okay except when it comes to size. Like that quote that the “men will always pick the Scarletts…” – all saying that does is alienate those of us who don’t fit into that category. It’s thinking like that that has kept me from feeling like a woman all my life. And so long as we try to say that any natural body image is wrong and that only one is right, we will continue to negatively influence the self-image of young girls who will keep growing up and having their hearts broken when those womanly curves just never show up.