SCARLETT'S 18" WAIST
There was a time when a 30" waist and any weight above 130 pounds would have spelled the end for a young woman. At least, that's vaguely how I remember it. Is there any American woman alive who saw "Gone With the Wind" and has forgotten Scarlett O'Hara's waist size?

TO SEE MAMMY'S WAIST-MEASURING TECHNIQUE, CLICK ON THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO - SKIP THE AD  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd6zQrcQ9YE In Margaret Mitchell's novel, at the beginning of the book, Scarlett is 16 and has a 17" waist, "the smallest in three counties." In the film, after Scarlet has had a daughter with Rhett and is in her early twenties, Mammy measures Scarlett's waist at 20".  Alarmed, upset, Scarlett says, "You just have to make it 18-1/2 again, Mammy!" Granted, Scarlett's waist was cinched tight with a laced-up corset before Mammy reaches for the tape measure. Nonetheless, the astounding number made a deep impression on real-life women watching everywhere, including me. I have no idea how old I was when I saw "Gone With the Wind" for the first time -- it came out in 1939 and I wasn't born until six years later. But it was and remains epic,  the waist-measuring scene with Mammy one of the movie's most memorable. At the time the story takes place, circa the Civil War, the ideal waist circumference for a woman was thought to be a somewhat mythical 18", vastly out of line with normal female body dimensions. Margaret Mitchell clearly did her research about the 19th-Century's propensity for drastic waist-cinching. PS: Actress Vivien Leigh was age 26 when she played Scarlett. Her own waist, corseted, was 22". So, times have changed since the 19th Century, or have they? Dr. Oz says a healthy waist size must be no more than half your height in inches. For me, that's 33". And guess what? My waist measures 33" this morning! (Please write and tell me "Bravo.")  But. That's the "healthy" number. What's the "fashion, film, and beauty industry" number?  My guess?  Extrapolating from the fact that the fashion, film, and beauty industry favors women in dress sizes 4 and below, I wager the preferred female waist size is somewhere between 23"-26". That represents a 5-8" increase in ideal waist size  since the 19th Century? That's something, right? STAY TUNED FOR AN EXEGESIS ON WAIST SIZE & ITS IDEAL RATIO TO HIPS AND BREASTS!  PS: Ideally, across the board, Dr. Oz says he wants a woman's waist at no more than 32-1/2".