Here are some of my experiences in southwestern China. While what I relate is generally representative of what I encountered, I’m an imperfect observer and what I say may not be representative of all of China. Take from it what you will.
I taught mostly college-aged young women, and yes, weight was a huge concern. As mentioned before, they saw 40 kilos (around 87 lbs.) as the “ideal” weight. My students were generally shorter and small-boned. 5’0" to 5’4" was an average height for women in my town- at 5’6" I towered over everyone and elicited lots of “Oh, she’s sooooo tall.” comments. I wear a size six dress, and weigh around 125 lbs, and I couldn’t find pants or skirts in my town that would fit me, and any time I bought clothes I had to ask for large or extra large. One time I was even given a XXXL bathing suit- something I never thought would happen to me!
But even on small people, the ideal was definitely extremely thin. My students would often repeat the well-known saying “bones are beautiful” and would talk about how they would like their bones to be visible. The “most beautiful girl in the school” was so thin that her arms were concave, curving in towards the middle and flaring out to accommodate the elbow and shoulder.
My students put a lot of mental energy into worrying about their weight. It was often a topic of conversation and when I’d talk about life goals and the like, weight was always a number one concern. Like any institution with lots of young women, it got rather competitive, with the skinniest girls showing off by voicing fake complaints about their imaginary weight problems and the wanna-bes making a big show of how they are only going to eat apples for the next week (or whatever fad crash diet was popular at the moment.) Anorexia and bulimia were both common, and many of my students talked to me in confidence about their eating disorders. Even more common were public displays of anorexia, with student staging elaborate fainting episodes in class and the like. Doing so was an easy way to get some attention and earn respect for being so devoted to weight loss.
Of course, you can find this stuff on any college campus in the world. What was surprising to me was that it was everyone, not just the “popular girls.” Everyone from the misunderstood artist in black, the lesbian in men’s clothes, the geek girl- they were all preoccupied with weight. It was striking just how much of their time and energy was spent on worrying about weight. This one subject was so dominent that it seemed to sap a lot of their energy to think about and discuss other things. I spent a lot of time in my classroom trying to develop a broader self-image and trying to get my students to understand how using their energy on this was holding them back.
What I saw in the classroom seemed to me to reflect a broader cultural trend of fetishizing the “incapable female.” I remember watching music videos one night and suddenly realizing that in fully half of the videos, the woman either dies, get sick or injured, or at least falls down. These were love songs. When my students were with their boyfriends, even the most confident girls would suddenly put on big displays of weakness- for example, they’d pretend to be struggling to carry their purses, and their boyfriends would “help” them by carrying it. It was also common to see young women pretending like they were having trouble walking, and making a big show of leaning on their boyfriend for support. Others actually couldn’t walk. Everyone wore high heels, and not good ones. My students would arrive in class taking small uncertain steps like someone iceskating for the first time, the grimace of pain evident on their faces with each step. This was normal. It was normal for women to hurt. Drove me nuts.
Any sort of muscle was considered unattractive, and I’d see the students shuffling around the track at night, trying to figure out some way to work weight off without putting on muscle. The go-go girls at clubs would dance with spaghetti arms because they’d have no muscle tone. More than once I was admonished on my runs for doing something that might make me too strong.
If I had to extrapolate, I’d say there is a lot of insecurity in general. The men had a lot of sexual insecurity (as illustrated by the wide variety of traditional aphrodisiacs available everywhere), and so they wanted women who could make them feel like the big manly man. Interestingly, in traditional Chinese culture sex with a grown women is a somewhat dangerous activity that saps your manhood (although very young girls and virgins can restore it.) I think there were undercurrents of this sort of thinking in a lot of gender relationships.
Discrimination in general meant that women actually did need to keep their looks a number one priority in order to live comfortable lives. Looks were for women what money and brains were for men- it’s what people were counting on to get them ahead in life. Hiring for any job- even stuff like teachers- was often based on attractiveness. I personally witnessed an HR person at a school sorting resumes into “attractive” and “unattractive” stacks.
Furthermore, women still expected their husbands to be the main provider and support their lifestyle- my students often cited “income” as the most important criteria for selecting a husband. My students (admittedly at a bit of a dead-end school with few other options in life) were counting on marrying a rich husband. Their parents, who count on their kids to support them as they age, put a lot of pressure on them to find a rich husband as well. They felt like they had to do everything they could to look good enough to attract someone who could support them and their parents comfortably. Since 25 is the target marrying age and 27 is the official point of being an old maid, there was a lot of pressure to do this all quickly.
Anyway, that’s some of what I saw. I’m not an expert, but hopefully this is interesting.