Another Reason We'll Miss Leonard Nimoy: He Championed Full-Figured Women

[eridani]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/02/27/nimoy-nudes?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-02-27

There's little doubt he'll be best remembered as the pointy-eared and highly logical half-Vulcan science officer who flanked Captain Kirk as they boldly went where no man had gone before.

But in the years since his 1966–69 run as the notoriously cool-blooded Spock, there was an issue Nimoy was very passionate about: women's body image.

In this 2008 interview on The Colbert Report, Nimoy challenges Stephen Colbert to think differently about the full-figured women he photographed for his book of nude photography, The Full Body Project.

“The standard is presented to us by the women who model the clothes that are being sold to the women in this country," Nimoy told Colbert. "The issue is this: The average woman in this country weighs 25 percent more than those models do, and they’ll never attain that body shape, so they’re being sold on the idea that they don’t look right."

Nimoy points out that there are entire industries that have succeeded by exploiting the insecurity that has developed in that 25 percent size gap. From weight loss pills to surgery, women are bombarded with invitations to buy their way out of their bodies—with few guarantees that any of it will work or proof of whether it's healthy. The shame and dysfunction that brings is something Nimoy disliked.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. Kudos to Leonard Nimoy for pushing a noble cause that deserves more attention.

[Enthusiast]

2. Men are probably as varied in their preference for women as women are for men.

It probably reaches clear down to the molecular genetic level. Genetic variation.

[MH1]

3. Interesting comment ... what does men's preference have to do with it?

Other than the extent to which men run the fashion industry that sets the standard of female "beauty"?

[FlaGranny]

4. Yes, women are the

ones who want this "ideal" figure, although many, or even most, men would consider them skinny or scrawny if they actually achieved it. If women wanted to please men they would have soft curves, not obvious bones poking out. Of course, all women don't want to be bony, but teens have a particularly hard time with their body image.

[Bettie]

5. For those of us who look more like the women in the photos

in his book than runway models, it is amazing to see.

There are so few positive representations of women who are over a size six, that seeing things like this hits on an emotional level, it says "yes, you are a human being and you do belong".

Our society says that we (those above the maximum acceptable weight) don't belong, that we are barely human.

[ismnotwasm]

6. Good for him

RIP

[roguevalley]

7. he was what a liberal used to be before the sell

outs began. I adore him.

[Skittles]

8. surely most of us gals are somewhere between model and "full body"

kudos to him though, for championing non-stick figures