“It’s a combination of factors, not just the Westernization of the culture, but also changing gender roles and increased consumerism in the Chinese economy, which is growing so fast.”

Jung presented her paper at the November conference of the International Textile and Apparel Association. The research grew out of earlier studies she conducted about women and body image, an area where misperceptions can lead to such behaviors as eating disorders.

“To my surprise, I found that Chinese women are even more dissatisfied with their body image than American women are,” she said. “So I wondered if these cultural changes in China were having an impact on traditional and contemporary views of ideal beauty.”

To explore that question, Jung conducted in-depth interviews with 23 women who were university students in Shanghai. She asked them their views of what Chinese society has traditionally considered to be ideal female beauty and how that compared to their own views.

While most of the women recognized that women with round faces and curvy bodies were the traditional ideals in China, most also said they preferred thin bodies and angular faces. The women generally cited fashion magazines as a place where they saw that type of thinner woman featured.

“They all want to look like those models,” Jung said, although most of the women she interviewed denied comparing themselves to images in the media. Fashion magazines in China feature Asian models who embody the American, European and Korean influences in appearance, she said.

This type of cultural change in views of beauty has occurred in other countries as well, but Jung said China is especially interesting because its economy has grown and adopted a consumer culture so rapidly. That’s clearly reflected in the beauty industry, she said.