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As a man, I only like this trait if it's wrapped up in a healthy woman. If they have to starve themselves and lose most of their lean body mass in order to achieve it, then please for the love of god, DON'T. The stick figure look is not attractive, we don't want to bang/hug/cuddle a bag of bones, a gap between your chicken legs isn't going to save you, it just accentuates the disturbing and unhealthy state of your body.
"The overarching sickness of appearance versus character" (very well said!) is fanned by people (from fashion designers to magazine editors to models/actors to diet doctors to fitness gurus) who constantly need to solidify their leadership in the "appearance industry." It's in their interest to create insecurity in their audience, so that the audience constantly spends money and effort trying to keep up with the demands of these style dictators.
Every business needs to create a market and constantly grow it. The market for the appearance industry is anyone who feels they need to "improve" or "keep up" and is fueled by insecurity. When this insecurity doesn't occur naturally, the industry is more than happy to inspire it with propaganda designed to instill doubt in the audience.
The public is fed a steady diet of images of people the appearance industry deems "beautiful." Anyone who lacks the ever-changing characteristics of this "in" look is told they need to fix themselves. Probably in response to the push-back the industry is feeling from a public that thinks emaciated models are a bad role model for young women, "the thigh gap" was born. It's a way to isolate one characteristic of an extremely thin person and focus on that (it used to be cheekbones, this year it's thighs). So the industry isn't telling teens "you need to starve yourself." Instead they're telling them "you aren't perfect unless you have a thigh gap." That's less frightening to mothers who don't know what a thigh gap is, but just as successful in sending the message that only the super-thin are "beautiful" in our culture. (Face it, plastic surgeons can make just as much money "sculpting" women's thighs as they can implanting plastic cheek bones. What do they care, as long as it's something.)
If the vast majority of people were super-thin, you can bet the appearance industry would declare its latest innovation to be "the plump look."
Whats funny is that the women who are famous due to their physical qualities are all more shapely, and are almost never rocking that bag-o-bones holocaust victim look the fashion industry pushes.
Scarlett Johhanson, Penelope Cruz, Jessica Biel, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron.
None of these women are unhealthily lean and/or lacking lean body mass. Most have plenty of fat on them, along with muscle mass.
I had too google this too. (I saw this on the active posts and so it caught my eye...you know, "thigh" and because I happen to be a man)
Anyway, I knew right away what it was when I saw the first picture on google.
From a man's point of view about this (not related to teens, but instead to women); a "thigh gap" is simply a primal / attractiveness thing. Totally sexual and nothing else. It is attractive to a man, just like a bunch of multi-colored feathers look to a peacock.
Pic one below: attractive
Pic two below: attractive
Pic two below: gross - extreme
Keep in mind that in some of the pictures models are deliberately posing with their hips pushed back to give themselves a thigh gap. Last year Beyonce was in an ad campaign where she had a noticeable thigh gap, but when you see her performing, it's not there. It's all pose and Photoshop.
Where do you think it comes from? what it is it about a thigh gap visually that is making so many teens desperate to have one, often resorting to starvation.
I think it comes from following media too closely. I had only ever heard the term very recently, like in the last few months, and the only time I ever hear/read it is in questionable media sources like the Huffington Post. I literally think the term was made up by so-called "journalists".
The obessesion is because the way they are making clothes nowadays - shame really, some places are going to lose a lot of customers if they keep catering to such a small demographic. Money knows no size - remember that retailers!
Clothes are getting BIGGER because so are Americans (& Brits & Australians). Vanity sizing is real. Look it up.
There are more & more plus-sized stores & sections than ever. Thinner people are getting "sized out".
It's really the cheap, teenage stores that have small sizes (often made in Asian countries), and the more expensive, adult women stores that cut things loose (an XS in Anthropologie is like a M in Forever 21).
Quote:
Originally Posted by ciceropolo
Can't say where particularly it comes from - I surmise some Women's magazine, with a heavy fashion influence to sell so called 'fashionable clothing' and weight loss / diet plans to malleable consumer minds no less.
Perhaps the teens are conditioned to think Holocaust victims / emaciated starvation photos are the new 'in thing'?
It definitely is a symptom of the overarching sickness of 'appearance' versus character and intelligence. As a guy, there was no time I can ever recall heterosexual guys referring to a woman's 'thigh gap'. It usually is associated in my mind with the wide hip - gait type women, a la the T Mobile spokes model a few years back. Not attractive in and of itself as it looks like they need a meal and to do some fitness exercises.
Some of us are built that way naturally & are perfectly healthy. I eat well & do yoga & strength building for years now & am thin with long slender legs, a thigh gap, & wider pelvic bone (in proportion to my frame). I don't see how this has anything to do with health. It's a matter of how one carries their weight. I actually carry my weight in the thighs & butt, but my thighs are thicker front to back than side to side, hence the gap. There's nothing bony or emaciated about me.
Just because it's not your taste doesn't mean you have to be nasty & mean about it . That commercial model is not emaciated either. That's like saying any plus size model is "morbidly obese" - total hyperbole.
I don't believe fashion trends make girls anorexic. Anorexia is way more complicated than that. I think fear of fat is more a reaction to the obesity epidemic. Poor diet & sedentary lifestyle is what makes people turn to extremes to manage weight - they don't know what "healthy" is because it's not normal.
The thigh gap look is probably just about the short-shorts trend right now. Some body types wear certain styles better than others. This in itself is not going to lead to anorexia, although those who don't meet the ideal may not feel great about it. But what about those who do naturally? Why is is wrong to ever celebrate their bodies?
I think this is less worrisome than teenage girls getting boob jobs because oversized boobs are fashionable; yet no one worries about big boobs on models/actresses being harmful to teenager's body self-images. People often refer to them as "accessories" for outfits even, so why not view slender thighs that way? Oh because then it's harmful, right? Those women shouldn't ever be seen as beautiful, apparently.
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just because you have a child doesn't mean you have to let yourself go.
. That commercial model is not emaciated either. That's like saying any plus size model is "morbidly obese" - total hyperbole. 
