A while back we reported on the “marshmallow girl” trend, which went on to make global news, as various media outlets speculated as to whether Japan was changing its tune when it comes to body size.
But now, a recent survey shows that opinions may not have changed all that much. While larger ladies are definitely a growing presence in the media, an overwhelming number of Japanese men still say that they prefer slim girls as their partners. Netizens have called the results obvious, and have nothing but vitriol for those who are perceived as obese.
From J-CAST News:
Demise Of The “Marshmallow Girl” Boom? Guys Say “We Like Slim Girls”, “It’s Obvious!”
The media tells us that girls who are “on the plump side” are trending, but now netizens are talking about a survey released whose results overwhelmingly show that what men like is is slim girls.
From the end of last year, chubby girls became “marshmallow girls”, plus new words for these women were coined, like “OshaKawa Teddy”, and there have even been special items on TV saying “Marshmallow girls are on trend”. But still, in the survey 77.6% of men responded that they wanted a slim girl as their girlfriend. At these results, lots of opinions like “I knew it” and “that’s obvious” have appeared online. Girls who are charming and cute are made more attractive if they have slim body types.
“Which is your type — a slim body or a plump body?” — The website Match Alarm, which runs and developed the “Match Alarm” marriage-hunting app that uses SNS site Facebook, carried out the survey, and 77.6% of men said they’d opt for slim women as their girlfriend. 22.4% said they preferred plump girls. Women’s responses were that 78.3% chose men with slim body types, and 21.7% chose men who were plump.
The survey was carried out between April 10 and April 12, 2014, among 2852 men and women in their 20s and 30s who are Match Alarm members, who took the survey by logging in online. The men who liked slim girls responded that the reasons for this were things like “because they seem cleaner, and more able to organise themselves”, “because I could be proud if she was with me”, “I’d want to protect her!”, whereas they said of plump girls that “they have a slovenly image”, “they have an unhealthy image”. Men who liked plump girls said they liked them because “they seem kind of motherly”, “it feels good when you hug them. They’re feminine”.
At these survey results, netizens said of plump girls that:
“Don’t write shitty articles. There’s no reason why fatties would be popular”
“If they’re just a little bit plump then it’s fine, but these results are because recently people have been calling fatties ‘plump'”
“If a chunker is charming and cute then she’d be attractive, but if a slim person is charming and cute then they’d be more attractive”.
These are the kinds of comments that appeared, and a lot of people think that the results of the survey are obvious.
A lot of people were puzzled by the TV programmes that said “Marshmallow girls are on trend”.
Up to now, the diet boom among women has continued as women say to themselves “I’m going to slim down and become beautiful”, but from the end of 2013, suddenly it was the fashion for “marshmallow girls to be on trend” and in December 2013 a 19 year old girl who was 158cm tall, weighed 85kgs, had a bust of 102cm, waist of 90cm, and 101cm hips was introduced on Fuji TV broadcast “Tokudane!” among others as a “marshmallow girl”. Looking at TV shows and magazines that featured these kinds of girls was seen as good news for plump women, and there were those who made much of the fact that the era of the chubby girl had come, but it’s also certain that a lot of people were confused by it.
“Marshmallow girl”, which has become the byword for plumper girls, originated with the fashion magazine la farfa, and the models in the magazine have gained attention through their uniqueness since they are all plump girls, and people have been talking about how cute they look wearing their soft pastel-coloured clothes. But just by looking at the results of this survey, it seems that we are left wondering whether the number of men who want to date marshmallow girls really has increased after the so-called boom.
Comments from J-CAST News:
何事も極端は駄目:
Love comes in all shapes and sizes, I suppose, but being too fat or being too thin — the extremes — are not something that would be supported by most people. The media making a boom, and pushing these “extremes” is the same thing.
It’s like “You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t” — the “such and such boom”, and the “so-and-so trend” are manipulated by the media who declare them so, and there are a lot of people who are pretty fed up with the suspicious way the media behave.
フローライト:
In the old days, small girls like Yaguchi Mari were featured on TV as the ones who got all the guys. They called these girls “micros”. But it wasn’t really a boom, was it? Now there are girls on TV from time to time who are so fat it shocks you, so it’s surprised me (゜;)))
一目瞭然:
Do an image search for “marshmallow girls”. You’ll get it in one.
I’m afraid these examples are in 2D, but the kind of plump that guys like is Rihoko from Amagami
なし:
What women think is slim is those chicken-boned models.
They’re not slim, they’re like mummies.
おっぱいの形:
The proof of a fatty is when their boobs are not round, but have four corners.
That’s not plump, that’s hideously obese.
コガネムシ:
The period when fatties were really in vogue was the Heian period. Since the postwar right up to now, there have only been a tiny majority of people who like fatties. That journalist who wrote “marshmallow girls” just didn’t give a damn, did they? First off, I don’t think that anyone who is too fat is beautiful.
ぷるうーと:
It seems that the boundaries are different for men and women when it comes to plump and fat. I think that a lot of men like big breasts, but if their waists are big too, then it doesn’t matter how huge their breasts are….
デブでごめんね。:
The thin girls in Japan are just too thin. Everyone wants model bodies too much.
still, it seems to me that the marshmallow girl models are too fat. But still, they look classy and cute. The thing is, I think the term plump is a word that refers to people who are just a little fatter than normal size. I reckon that marshmallow girls are people who are in a league above that.
いやいや:
If you’re just looking at outward experience like chubby or slim, then you’re only looking at someone as a sex object. If you’re going out with someone properly, then it’s their personality and lifestyle.
けてっ:
This was never even a boom in the first place!!
Comments from 2ch.net:
名無しさん:
This fatty boom is just something that the media has cooked up to flatter women.
名無しさん:
So I guess they’ve failed at trying to make it trend?
名無しさん:
I guess that the concept is to try not to deceive people since a lot of actresses and idols lie about their size, so to a certain extent they get people’s sympathy…
But I think that there’s something impossible about trying to extol the virtues of obesity.
名無しさん:
This kind of thing is basically the kind of trolling that you see in the weeklies.
It’s the last ditch sales measure to try to work out how to get a magazine to sell when it’s not selling.
Still, it seems that the number of fools that fall for this stuff has decreased.
名無しさん:
Huge mistake to think that something as unclean as fatties would trend.
名無しさん:
Fat girls don’t start out fat, do they? w
People who like them like them, and that’s it.
名無しさん:
Who cares, like seriously, who cares?
