How the White House fell for the ‘Living Diet’
For the ancient Greeks, it was the shapely buttocks of the famous statue of Aphrodite kallipygos – literally “Aphrodite of the beautiful arse.” The female ideal also included small, pert breasts, pale skin indicative of leisure indoors, away from the sun, and fair reddish or blonde hair. The male ideal, by contrast, was that of the athlete, the body shaped by training in the gymnasium and the wrestling school (palaestra) for competition and, ultimately, war. Defined but not excessive musculature; broad shoulders and narrow waist; tanned skin glistening with olive oil and exfoliated by the scraping of a bronze strigil. And we know the Greeks preferred dainty genitals too – at least in art – as a sign of masculine continence and self-control.
