Size (and shape!) does matter! ;)

''How has body shape changed during the last century? What were the popular and glamorized body shapes of the day?'' [source]

''The End of the Hourglass Figure.
... The research found that although only 8 per cent of women now had the sort of hourglass figure flaunted by curvaceous 1950s film stars such as Sophia Loren, designers and manufacturers continued to make clothes to fit a slim-line version of that figure.'' [source]


''Fully 80 percent of [USA?] men ages 18 to 50 say they want a voluptuous woman ...
Fun fact: A 14, which is now considered a "plus size," was approximately sex bomb Marilyn Monroe's dress size.'' [source]

''Why not design for the ‘average’ user?
...
every human being is unique, bodily dimensions vary quite widely both in terms of absolute size and in proportion to each other. In other words, the average person is rather unique.'' [source]


And what about men?
'' Consider, for example, that the average British man has a waist size measuring 39in, and yet American Apparel ... doesn't sell its signature Slim Slack trouser with a waistband larger than 30in.
...
Incidences of eating disorders in men are on the rise. In 1990, 10% of people suffering from anorexia or bulimia were estimated to be men; today it's more like 25%.
...
And yet traditionally the male physical ideal is the opposite of skinny. It is athletic, buff, big shouldered, capable. It has pecs and guns and ripped abdominals. Until relatively recently, thin men were ashamed, or assumed to be ashamed, of their bodies.
...
WHICH IS NOT TO SAY that the cultural imperative to be extremely skinny has replaced the cultural imperative for men to be buff. It hasn't. The muscular male ideal has somehow, simultaneously, remained current.
'' [source]