To wonder why a flat tummy is seen as so desirable....?

[WoodlandHills]

When a lot of the time its almost impossible to maintain post-adolescence really. Not to mention after pregnancy, natural weight fluctuations etc. (I am sure there will be loads of lucky women who DO have one naturally come on this thread to deny this!

I am asking this because I myself would LOVE a flat tummy....have been Shredding for a few weeks now and am getting some good results, but still seem to have a bit of a "mum tum" (sorry for cringey phrase) ....and look at women who DO have a flat tummy with great envy, but OTOH would not want to kill myself with diet and exercise to achieve one. But have not owned one since I was about 14 sadly :o

And also (sorry if this is partly a thread about a thread) there was a thread the other day that ran and ran about a lady who was going to bind her belly after her baby was born in an attempt to get it back to "sexy" flatness ASAP.

men fancy fertile looking women no matter what age the men are, youthful looking = fertile looking

Worra - will I get a flat tummy if I clench my teeth?

Only if they're clenched so hard, you're unable to eat anything

How do you get rid of tummy fat then?

Lacking I think the same can be said for most women really...if we're talking about looks and immediate attraction alone.

Debeez Patrick Stewart is divine

I think its not just men who like it.Its not often a woman fancies a man with a beer belly.

Do you drink op?

Right with deb here.

I knew all hope was lost when I had a crush on John Spencer aged 21 (me, not him).

I agree about it being the unattainability.

I'm wondering about the pregnancy thing - now, I thought women with very low body fat are less likely to be able to conceive, so surely a slight rounding would be ideal?

It's interesting, though.

It's a sign of health, isn't it? And therefore attractive. And in women it is an indication that they are not pregnant and therefore might be fertile!

women don't look for the same things in men that men look for in women though

men look for fertility
women look for provider males (money/power etc, things that often come with older men) or good genes

because it just looks so much nicer.

I don't understand how, in some cultures, fat can be seen as desirable. I mean, I don understand, anthropologically speaking, but I still can't get it to work in my head. Thin, toned flesh looks good, fat, wobbly flesh just doesn't.

It's not impossible to maintain post adolescence. I has a flat stomach until I has dd1 and before dd2 was conceived. I used to do ball crunches in front of the tv every few nights plus my trainer taught me a few more exercises with a weight ball etc. it wasn't that hard

I dont believe that really lacking.Look at how every woman lately wants tom daley

LRD if you go too thin you don't look fertile either, as you loose the hips and breasts and look pre puberty. The flat stomach is teamed with hips and breasts to indicate fertility. there is no need whatsoever for a bit of a bulge fertility wise, you can have a flat tummy and be nowhere near underweight to the point of affecting your fertility

Bee I said provider males or good genes, tom daly would provide the genes, everone chooses one or the other, and which you choose can depend on the time of the month, if you pull around ovulation I think you go for genes not provider (so more likely to have a one night stand) so that you have "sexy sons" who get good mates and provide you with sexually desirable grand children. and at non fertile times you go for more stick around and provide father types

I don't find Tom Daley at al sexually attractive BTW, but I'm not fertile right now (pregnant) so am lusting after Bill Clinton (from meeting celebs thread) instead at the moment

See, I'd look at it from the 'look at me, I've got hours to devote to personal wellbeing, thus am not scrabbling around just trying to get by'. Likewise all high-maintanaince appearance things.

I must be permanently fertile then as I would never get with anyone not sexually attractive.I can make money but if you can only have sex with one person forever I have to have a hottie

Who is a flat tummy "desirable" to? I once did a straw poll of about 20 men and all of them said they thought a slightly rounded tummy was more attractive on a woman than a flat tummy. (I might add that at the time I had a flat tummy and was a size 8-10 so they weren't trying to flatter me or avoid any insults).

it's a body shape thing - i have a flatish tummy but i have enormously chunky thighs.... believe me, if you moved all your tummy you didn't want to your thighs you still wouldn't be happy.

'there is no need whatsoever for a bit of a bulge fertility wise, you can have a flat tummy'

Speak for yourself, lacking!

Its a sign of good health and musculature.

I dunno why either, as in whether it's a societal conditioning thing, or just basic biology.

But there's no denying Lucy Mecklenburg looks better in a bikini than Gemma Collins by anybody's standards.

Sadly, my poor tum is well beyond repair. Once the skin tone is gone, it's gone.

Bee, as I said, women choose one or the other, men choose fertility

worldgonecrazy it also varies slightly depending on the economy/war etc, in boom times the desirable weight goes down a bit and in war/recession it goes up a litte - but whichever it is the desirable hip waist ratio stays EXACTLY THE SAME - its never most desirable to have a waist that goes out more than hips, but can at times be overall more desirable to have bigger hips and boobs which allows a bit of give and take in the tummy area to achieve the same ratio. Look at plus sized models, or celebrated "curvy" celebs, most just look like scaled up thin women - they don't look like your average bulging tum size 16/18/20, their tummies are still smaller than their hips

and there are individual differences, this is on average

Is it a hip-waist ratio thing? Which supposedly is correlated with fertility and health, so makes sense that it would be considered attractive?

I agree it's about body shape as much as weight. I naturally have a flat tummy as long as I'm not overweight. Maybe not quite as flat and firm as when I was in my teens, but not bad, and I don't have to do any special exercises or diets. I don't have particularly low body fat, it's just distributed differently on my fat thighs.