From the year 1980-2000 the amount of obese women (in North America) has more than doubled from about 10% to now 25%, or 1 in 4.

Too many Happy Meals, at McDonalds!

The tiny tiny waists came from wearing girdles. If you wear one long enough you will have a tiny waist also.

Because most women no longer wear girgles, which gave you a tiny waist but squashed all your insides, very unhealthy. Believe me, I know.

Supersized Fast food is the culprit. It's unbelievable the number of calories one meal contains.

Some of the girls do not try to look better for the boys. Some of the fat girls "make" the thin girls eat more so they(the fatties) do not look bad(they still do).

Depends on when you're remembering from--experience or history. If you think girdles were constricting, try corsets, which laced women so tight that some had 17-inch waists and others were proud that their husbands could encircle their wastes with their two hands. Corsets explain why women in the old days fainted so much--they could hardly breathe.

Whilst the classic "hourglass" figure that was common until the 1950's was mainly due to restrictive underwear (If you look at portraits of women from pre-1800 you will see the favoured figure is more "pear-shaped" with large lower half and small breasts)there is some evidence that women's body shapes have physically changed over time. Its worth noting that obesity, whilst on the increase, doens't seem to be directly related to the issue. Even slim, healthy women well within, or even under the BMI for their height have a smaller difference in the measurement of their hips and waist. Kate Moss, for example, a very slim woman has a larger waist measurement than Marilyn Monroe at the height of her fame, - just by looking its clear that Marilyn had the higher body fat. Overweight, it seems, isn't the answer, or at least not the whole answer. Not only is our hip-to-waist ratio smaller, we are also taller, heavier,have bigger feet, and higher bone density- although this is not necessarily down to a poor diet. In fact, whilst the fast food revolution has done a lot of harm, compared to the war years, we know far more about nutrition and many people eat better than they did fifty years ago. This is an interesting take on dietary changes over the last fifty years. Overall it seems we are actually far healthier (and certainly live longer): http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/seasonsandcelebrations/howweusedtoeat/changingtastes/ I was looking for an article I read a while back that went into this in detail and can't seem to find it (will edit if I do). Whilst I was looking I came across some claims that simply eating more food was responsible, some that the levels of hormones or artificial chemicals in food were responsible (one thing I will add from personal experience is that the girls I know who eat mostly organic food do seem to be generally more classically feminine than those who don't, regardless of what they actually eat), some blamed alcohol (and anyone whose ever drunk Guiness will testify there's probably some truth in this!). Some claim our bodies are just going through a natural evolutionary process- what was beneficial in times of relative scarcity is not necessarilly so in times of plenty when a more athletic "straight up and down" figure is of more use than the hourglass (which does, after all carry a large amount of fat on the hips and bust). I couldn't find any that referred to hydrogenated vegetable oils directly as a cause for an increase in waist size. http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1027942004 Personally, whilst I loathe and despise Macdonalds and wouldn't touch processed food with a barge pole, I think blaming it all on the fast food revolution is a little too simplistic. If you take a close look at women who eat near-perfect diets and excercise constantly, you still won't see tiny handspan waists- just slim, toned, athletic bodies. Some interesting articles on how women's bodies have changed over the years: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/12/20/study.playboy/index.html http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.htm http://www.handbag.com/healthfit/health/bodyshapehistory/

women no longer have those "tiny, tiny" waists, like previously in the victorian era, because they are no longer required by fashion to wear corsets from the age of 7 years. it could also be that maybe, by todays standards, women who have tiny waist are often underweight. corsets are constricking, although only for a short period of time and, from previous expierence, do not make it hard for a women to breathe.