TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1999

Bigger women back

Big women are back, but they have always been beautiful.

A few years ago, the waif thing was in, and stick-figure models such as Kate Moss trotted down the catwalk with audience members howling and fashion photographers clicking their cameras.

Now, the waif thing is out. And bigger women are slowly coming back.

The demand for plus-size models is booming, so much that thin models are packing on the pounds to pick up more jobs, as reported in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

And some of these big models are becoming big names.

Angellika Morton became the first plus-size model to be inducted into the Model Hall of Fame of the Modeling Association of America Inc., and plus-size model Emme hosts her own TV series, "Fashion Emergency."

And that is just the beginning.

Voluptuous vixens Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lopez and Catherine Zeta-Jones have grabbed Hollywood's thin image by its scrawny neck and made names for themselves.

Women should not obsessively sculpt their bodies until they have the ideal shape. Their bodies are not marble, and they are not Michelangelos.

Some men like "Ally McBeal"-thin women, but many men want the shape tugging at their breeding instinct - the voluptuous type.

Any one man is attracted to a variety of body shapes. So women should not try to achieve the one perfect shape.

Also, most men like taking women out to dinner, so obsessive dieting ruins dates, not to mention a woman's health.

Most men want a woman with wide curves that are packed, not females so thin that they look like junior-high school girls.

It is about time bigger women have someone they can identify with because they should not go through the emotional and physical strain of starving themselves when many men find them more attractive before they do that.