As much as I loathe advertising, I think this assessment is provably wrong. We're genetically driven to pick out mates most likely to produce fertile, healthy, and effective offspring. Even in relatively isolated tribes with 0 access to advertising of any sort, preferences like low waist-to-hip ratios are ubiquitous [1] (random study that also references a bunch of others - this is not a controversial statement). The reason is that low waist-to-hip ratios correlates with all sorts of health, fertility, and genetic strengths. So we are genetically attracted to such.
I think you could also make an argument in reverse here as well. An increasingly large chunk of Western advertising is actively seeking to push values like contravening said genetic proclivities, yet it seems to have had little to no impact on what people find attractive. That's even more telling as obesity is rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception.
I think you could also make an argument in reverse here as well. An increasingly large chunk of Western advertising is actively seeking to push values like contravening said genetic proclivities, yet it seems to have had little to no impact on what people find attractive. That's even more telling as obesity is rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception.
[1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01916-9