This supports the notion that women filling such roles on TV are chosen primarily for their appearance. On the other side of the coin are the assumptions often made about women who do fit the ideal, and the expectations placed upon them. Beautiful women are often treated as brainless idiots, simply because they're beautiful. They are only expected to fulfil the role imposed on them by society's response to their beauty. Women who have suffered from the inability to meet the stringent requirements of the ideal can feel very threatened by beautiful women, and show this by a lack of sympathy towards them, regardless of the issue at hand.
Some women misdirect their anger at thin women, whom they see as perpetuating the ideal.
But we persist in believing the myth that if we don't find the ideal, we just haven't tried hard enough. Nutritionist Rudolf Liebel says failed dieters can take comfort from his research into the body's 'set point'. People in the dieting industry have known this all along. And all because fat is supposed to be the villain. Fat is the big no-no.