Why weren't Victorian upper class women fat?

[waltzingparrot]

They sat around drinking tea, playing the piano, embroidering, reading. Just the odd amble round a park, occasional dance.

How did they stay slim with their tiny waists?

Having to do all the laundry by hand helped. As did workhouses for the poor. On the whole though, I think the middle classes were generally quite plump.

I haven't read the whole thread, but surely, with no very reliable contraception, Victorian women were pregnant or nursing, for most of the time. This means they wouldn't have exercised a great deal - well, the middle class women and gentry.

They were smaller in stature. Recipes for cake, we see, were full of sweet ingredients, as are faithfully-traditional delicacies sold today, such as Bakewell tart, from Bakewell in Derbyshire: these are amazing and seriously rich and treacly.

Some of the richer women were fat, and it was a sign of considerable beauty to be plump and dimpled, as Fred's wife is in Dickens's ' A Christmas Carol'.

@WineAcademy

Does anyone else sort of freak out about the lack of privacy they would have lived with back then? No sneaking to the kitchen for a midnight snack, no having a third portion of that amazing dish, without it being gossiped over.

Is this a serious comment? I'm a lot worried about privacy nowadays with everyone living their whole lives online, targeted ads etc. etc.!

Isn't it fascinating to see who was considered a 'great beauty' back then? Lillie Langtry for example. Not sure she'd create such a stir these days.

I dunno. My eye was immediately drawn to her impressive décolletage and bosom in that image and I’m straight. I only looked at her face as an afterthought because you suggested she wasn’t a looker. I’m assuming the chaps viewing that image at the time did not look at her face at all, as it would have been very provocative for its time. To modern men? Well, I hear Pornhub caters to every sub-genre and niche interest…

@EducatingArti

Many were! Think of Queen Victoria in her later years.

That was exactly my first thought! The old Queen Victoria was pretty coruplent!

*corpulent

@Cocomarine

If you’re basing your view on photographs of Victorian women, consider also that perhaps the least slim women were also the ones most likely to hide from cameras, just as perhaps today?

Any evidence for this? Doesn't ring true for me.

@Mamanyt

Have you ever worn a corset, tightly laced, for any length of time? I have. Not only can you not draw a deep breath (fainting couches were called that for a reason), but you cannot eat more than a few bites without becoming uncomfortable. I lived for the moment that my part was done, and I got out of the wretched thing. And, as someone else mentioned, processed foods were unheard of, with the exception of sugar, which was so expensive that it was used in extreme moderation. Even desserts were not nearly so sweet as ours are today.

Was sugar particularly expensive? Surely not in Victorian period.

I thought that the well off women were pretty obese by the time they were middlea ged. Queen Victoria certainly was. What evidence is there that the rich were slim beyond the time they needed to pull a husband?

@godmum56

they were fat, also thin, tall short and so on. Here's a picture of atelier Maison Worth

That looks Edwardian rather than Victorian to me.

Corsets! Even the fatties got a nipped in waist 🤣

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

And there is not and never has been a corset that will reduce a 26” waist to 15”…

I was going to say this.

If you're tight lacing, you will only get a dramatic reduction in inches if you are already very overweight.

"Lizzie Bennett in P and P walked over to Netherfield, 'It's only three miles'!"

But was looked down upon for it.

If you’re basing your view on photographs of Victorian women, consider also that perhaps the least slim women were also the ones most likely to hide from cameras, just as perhaps today?

To be far if you look at social media pics from today in 100 yrs time will that be a true representation of what women look like?

One reason most existent antique dresses are so small because larger size items were reused or cut down.
I have an 22” school skirt I could tuck jumpers into my hope chest. I didn’t have a corset, but was 5’ and seven stones at most. My waist was under 24” naturally until I turned 35/stopped climbing a long flight of stairs fifty times a day. Good posture and wearing garments at the natural waist line helps.

Gwenhwyfar "That looks Edwardian rather than Victorian to me."

1860's bang in the middle of victorian. Worth died in 1895

@Twitchynose

Housework was much more labour intensive. . Many houses had open fires to cook on, lugging in fuel, lighting and cleaning fires, laundry took all day, physically scrubbing the clothes, wringing the, out with a mangle, heating a heavy iron on the stove to then press the clothes. Sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, beating rugs and carpets. Bearing and breastfeeding multiple children by doing all the above, not to mention working 6 days a week in mills for a lot of women. No affordable public transport, so walking and carrying everything. Hands always busy sewing, repairing clothes. Poverty and ill health were rife. Many couldn’t afford doctors or food, men were often given the best /more food. So glad I’m not a Victorian!

The question was about upper class women.

There was a great pressure to stay thin, so women were encouraged to exercise ( Queen Victoria hated exercise and didn't think a queen should have too). They also couldn't eat a lot with corsets on and the diet was generally healthier for middle and lower class people as they couldn't afford meat.
However many upper-class people suffered from obesity, gout and other weight/diet related illnesses and thats without mentioning the high consumption of alcohol
The thing about corsets is that they are also an optical illusion as the sheer volume of the skirts mixed with the cinched waist made women appear to be much thinner than they actually where.
Many more upper-class people died younger because of weight related conditions than working class.

I’ve worn 50s gather nylon petticoats. They make your waist look tiny, just as crinoline would.
I routinely wear 5 pounds of clothing in winter (full slip, knickers, wooly tights, heavy waltz length dress, and wool jumper), and the Docs add another three pounds. It’s what you are accustomed too, but 37 pounds seems extreme without wire bustle, train, and so on.

Also if you look at real photos of these women, they look pretty average size wise, where as paintings and illustrations excentualted that long hourglass shape. Women didn't really look like that

They had special bowls to vomit

@BalloonSlayer

I always notice in wartime newsreels there are always a few older women who were really quite large. I often wonder about that - rationing would have made that impossible, you would have thought. I suspect it is true that some people stay large no matter what.

Some people swindled the rationing system, I suspect, bought on the grey market, got food at work or whatever.

Corsetry definitely made a difference -
Lillie Langtry looks almost deformed in this picture

I can see that she'd be attractive by Victorian standards

@Staffy1

Didn’t they do a lot of physical housework. No vacuum cleaners and washing machines back then.

Upper class women.

That one looks very retouched to me, bearing in mind the link about Victorian photo retouching posted above.