A Critique of "Too 'Close to the Bone'"

In her article "Too ‘Close to the Bone’: The Historical Context for Women’s Obsession with Slenderness", Roberta Seid, a lecturer at the University of Southern California, examines what she calls the historical context, as well as the negative effects, of society’s ideal of slenderness. Seid main point in the article is that the current ideal body size of society is much too thin to be healthy. While Seid does have a well founded belief, her use of logical fallacies and a few extreme views may make her readers that the rest of the paper is also unsound.
In the article, Seid makes the claim that the pursuit of slenderness has become almost religious in nature. She shows that there is reward and punishment by society in following the doctrine of this religion, and that virtue is shown by pounds, clothing sizes, and body measurements. Seid goes on to say that never in history has the body ideal been as thin as we have made it. In fact, Seid claims, thinness was often lo...