Thin but not skinny: Women negotiating the “never too thin” body ideal in urban India

Abstract

With western companies spreading the “never too thin” body ideal to non-western societies, many expect a global increase in the pathology of eating. This study examines the dieting and slimming practices of 27 women living in urban India. Though the women were involved in various dieting routines and wanted thin bodies, they set limits to the ideal of an ultra-thin body. Instead, the women directed their dieting and slimming practices toward embellishing their contemporary identity as educated, well-informed clients of a burgeoning health industry and as cultural agents responsible for protecting generational beliefs surrounding food and body. Grounding my research in theories that understand women's negotiations of their bodies in contexts that have been impacted by forces of globalization, yet regulated by their familial worlds, I provide a culturally nuanced argument of why and how urban Indian women set limits on the ultra-thin ideal. The women used cultural strategies, or what I refer to as speculative modernity, that rely on traditional notions of beauty and well-being to filter and selectively adopt new beliefs of food and body.