Americana: Fat's Where It's At

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Thin is in, right? And sexier besides. Well, not according to Anthropologist Anne Scott Beller. In her new book, Fat & Thin—A Natural History of Obesity (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $10), Beller argues that fat women are not only cuddly, loving, jovial sorts, but more sexy too. She cites studies showing that endomorphic lasses are more responsive to erotic stimulation and have greater sexual appetites. In one survey conducted in a Chicago hospital, "fat women outscored their thin sisters by a factor of almost two to one," in terms of excitability. Only our culture's notion that fat is "morally and sexually repulsive" has produced the idea that a fat woman's overeating is a substitute for her sex drive, says Beller. The fact is her cravings for food and fun exist simultaneously. Now that Beller has established that fat is where it's at, all those chubbies on starvation diets can relax and say, with John Dryden's Maiden Queen, "I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty."