America's new top model ...or top skeleton

[Eden]

Why does culture never focus on the healthy and only on the skinny??

It just happens to be the times that we live in. If you look at the ideal of beauty from other eras you will find that it has ranged far and wide, from thin to rubenesque. Go back only a little way to the 40's and 50's and think about pin up models. They certainly don't look like the models of today. Trends will likely change again.

btw - at only 5 feet tall, even if I were excessively thin, which I am not, I will always be far from the ideal of beauty in this culture, but I really don't think about it too much as I am much too busy doing other things to worry about it too much.... (I figure if I even wanted to strive for it, I'd have to spend more time doing hair and makeup and other things that I don't do now and it would cut into my bike time too much! - maybe being short, a thing I really cannot change, has been good for me, since I never felt pressured to try to get model type looks out of a body that cannot be dieted or exercised into being taller?)