Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
GONE are the 'Big Mamma'stereotypes and the full figures of yesteryear - a new study has found Italian women are the only ones getting thinner despite a global obesity epidemic.
As Bahrain this week celebrates an Italian festival, experts say it's all thanks to major cultural changes, a healthy Mediterranean diet and simply paying more attention to waistlines.
The ideal of beauty is 'very different from the post-war period if you look at photos of actresses from the 1950s' like Sofia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida, said Maria Rosaria D' Isanto, a nutritional expert.
A global study published in medical journal The Lancet backs her up, finding that the Body Mass Index (BMI) for Italian women has fallen from 25.2 in 1980 to 24.9 in 1990 and 24.8 in 2008, bucking the trend seen elsewhere.
Another important factor was 'the re-evaluation during the 1980s of the Mediterranean diet' based on olive oil and rich in fibres.
Pietro Migliaccio, head of the Italian Society of Food Sciences, said: "If you look at Scandinavian, German or Ukrainian women, they're magnificent when they're 18-20 years old but after that they let themselves go and by the time they're 35 they're already flabby."
Last but not least, Migliaccio said the BMI is going down because Italians as a whole are getting taller 'and can now have basketball or volleyball teams' - with average heights rising some 10 centimetres in the past 100 years. Why?: "A better diet, a healthier lifestyle and more happiness," he added.
