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Sun Xun shows off her fit figure. Photo: Li HaoGT
Although she weighs only 46 kilograms at a height of 173 centimeters Jonathan Toews Womens Jersey , 31-year-old Sun Xun, an anchorwoman at a television station in Beijing, still sticks to a diet and hits the gym around five times a week.


But this is not another tragic story in which a girl suffers from anorexia and starves to death just to be thin. Instead, Sun along with most other girls in her gym, is working out in order to be healthy, fit and even strong.


"I want to build muscle and gain some weight through working out," Sun said. "I don't think skinny is beautiful. I think gym-tight abs and abdominal muscles with wheat colored skin is beautiful."


Some 24 million people in the US are suffering from eating disorders due to the pressure of losing weight Duncan Keith Womens Jersey , according to statistics released by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders in February 2014. Meanwhile, teenage girls in the UK starve themselves to copy stick-thin celebrities such as Cara Delevingne or Eleanor Calder's "thigh gap", which demands legs so thin that the thighs do not touch, according to a Daily Mail report in February 2013.


However, the trend that everybody thinks thin is the only standard for beauty seems to be changing.


No one is sure where it began, but the motto "Strong is the new skinny" has become popular on social media - the Facebook account currently has 114,525 likes - and has inspired women around the world to swarm into the gym to build muscles.

Experts worry that "fitspiration" among female gym devotees may lead to obsessive behavior. Photo: Li HaoGT

In April Patrick Kane Womens Jersey , the US singer P!nk shut down critics who said she had gained weight with a tweet declaring that she felt beautiful and secure. A pop star publicly embracing her "healthy, voluptuous and crazy strong body" has further drawn the popular aesthetic standard away from thin, according to a Guardian report last month.


This trend has arrived in China. The Chinese branch of fashion magazine ELLE published a report last month, stating that strong beats skinny as the new female aesthetic beauty standard. The rise of Chinese movie stars Fan Bingbing and Zhang Yuqi, who both have a stronger figure compared to skinny celebrities, also shows the changing trend.


Bulging abs, rising social status


Growing up Marian Hossa Jersey , Sun wasn't always this skinny. Her weight reached 55 kilograms in her senior year at high school. As she began to do aerobic exercise during college, her weight dropped to around 48 kilograms.


"My weight wasn't stable back then. If I stopped running for a month, my weight would increase dramatically," Sun recalled. "My body was also very loose. I still had some fat in my arms and belly although I was already very thin."


"Ever since I started to do some anaerobic exercise, lifting weights and strength training, my weight started to fix at 46 kilograms, even if I eat a lot as the hostess of a gourmet show and sometimes can't go to the gym for a week Gustav Forsling Jersey ," Sun said. "I also look better in clothes with some muscles on my shoulders and back."


Sun is not alone as a woman pursuing muscles and strength. Guo Haoting, a personal trainer from the fitness club Will's in Chaoyang district, said that female gym membership has increased 30 to 50 percent since two years ago, with 80 percent of female members now exercising their muscles through fitness equipment.


However, Sun's effort to pursue a six-pack wasn't always appreciated by Chinese men. On Valentine's Day two years ago, when Sun posted a picture of her lifting a 30 kilogram barbell and the muscles on her back to her WeChat Moments, most of her male friends were scared by the photo.


"A male friend even said that I could never find a valentine if I keep this muscular figure. No man would ever like me John Hayden Jersey ," Sun recalled. "Luckily as more men joined the gym themselves, they started to like my figure," she said. "I married my husband this February, who is a personal trainer and likes the way I am now."


Zhang Fu, a strength, conditioning and rehabilitation expert at the Peking University Gymnasium Training Center, has also noticed the trend of women shaping their body to achieve strength and muscle compared to the aesthetic standard in the past Ryan Hartman Jersey , when women were regarded beautiful for their relatively thin and gentle figures.


Zhang also hosts a combat training camp every three months and at each session around 20 of the 50 attendees are women, with diverse occupations including lawyer, journalist, senior executive and network engineer.


"I believe it has something to do with more Chinese women entering and succeeding in the workplace, so they need to be more independent and confident, and have more strength," Zhang said. The behavior could positively affect people's character as the explosive and confrontational force people feel in heavy exercises would help foster a sense of strength and confidence Brandon Saad Jersey , according to Zhang.


"It is unlike in ancient times, when women were dependent on men in the patriarchal society and women were just expected to be thin and gentle," Zhang said.


"It shows the rise of women's social status."


Meng Dawei (pseudonym), 30, who works for the lottery industry in Beijing, said that he prefers women with curvaceous figures instead of skinny.


"I think it's because of men's basic instincts," Meng said. "I believe part of the reason why women go to the gym to get a tight waist and bottom is to attract men's attention Artem Anisimov Jersey , so to have a better spouse," Meng said. "Also, the dresses nowadays could show their sexy figure better."


Mixed reactions


Lü Pin, a feminism columnist and women's rights advocate, said that she admits that women pursuing strength and muscle could help break the gender stereotypes that men are strong and women are weak.


"But I don't think it shows the rise of women's social status. Rising s