Another Reason We'll Miss Leonard Nimoy: He Championed Full-Figured Women

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/02/27/nimoy-nudes?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-02-27

There's little doubt he'll be best remembered as the pointy-eared and highly logical half-Vulcan science officer who flanked Captain Kirk as they boldly went where no man had gone before.

But in the years since his 1966–69 run as the notoriously cool-blooded Spock, there was an issue Nimoy was very passionate about: women's body image.

In this 2008 interview on The Colbert Report, Nimoy challenges Stephen Colbert to think differently about the full-figured women he photographed for his book of nude photography, The Full Body Project.

“The standard is presented to us by the women who model the clothes that are being sold to the women in this country," Nimoy told Colbert. "The issue is this: The average woman in this country weighs 25 percent more than those models do, and they’ll never attain that body shape, so they’re being sold on the idea that they don’t look right."

Nimoy points out that there are entire industries that have succeeded by exploiting the insecurity that has developed in that 25 percent size gap. From weight loss pills to surgery, women are bombarded with invitations to buy their way out of their bodies—with few guarantees that any of it will work or proof of whether it's healthy. The shame and dysfunction that brings is something Nimoy disliked.