Want to have the perfect and shapely butt a la Hollywood star Jennifer Lopez and Bollywood’s very own beauty Malaika Arora Khan? If yes, then eat healthy, exercise, do yoga or else go under the knife, suggest experts.

I ran across this article in The Hindu this morning, an English-speaking Indian daily newspaper, with circulation of 1.2 million (the New York Times clocks in at 1.6 million). The article explains how women in their 30s or post-pregnancy simply get fat butts. The article’s title politely refers to it as “firm posteriors”.

There was no subtly or reading between the lines: The Problem = fat women. The Solution = diet, exercise and to adopt a long standing tradition for yoga for the single aim of moulding your ass.

My naivety was rocked. I know that the ideal body has taken shape globally (not a rounded-edge form, but shared on a global-scale). I just hadn’t expected India to blatantly bastardize their own tradition for the purpose of a materialistic goal.

It got better.

Thanks to increasing awareness, women in India have started talking about their dissatisfaction with their butt and are consulting cosmetic surgeons to solve their problem.

Increasing awareness! It’s almost sounding like a grassroots movement! Crack open the dialog and take action, ladies. I’m not an expert, but I feel that this is part of our Western gift back to the world. The media is our tool for increasing awareness, and the message is clear. Women around the world are being pressured into conforming to a physical ideal by taking external measures to combat their natural shape. I’ve written about this recently in The New Yoga Diet.

It’s interesting that in the West, we’re much more subtle with these messages. The ideal body is a known undercurrent in our society, but not spelled out so blatantly. Perhaps it’s due to the fact this publication is written in a second language; the subtly got lost in translation. But the tone seems moth-eaten to me, something dredged up from the 50s or 60s for the homemaker audience. With such a blunt message, my reaction was equally as candid: it’s time to get over this focus and devaluation of our external selfves.