Vintage magazine beauty advice is one of my favorite subjects. I love the boldness, the craziness, the lack of political correctness. Probably why I loved the early internet days. Unhinged tips on everything - no one was monitored!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A magazine aimed at literal teenagers used to tell them how to sit down. That is a real instruction from a 1967 teen beauty and fashion guide, and it is not even the strangest thing in it.

This book was, in its own words, a guide to being a proper young lady in a pre-Women's-Lib world, and reading it now feels less like nostalgia and more like archaeology. Let's dig in.

The Advice, As Written

On sitting. Girls were told to cross their ankles rather than their knees, with the reasoning that trying it in front of a mirror would make the difference obvious. Reader, I did try it in front of a mirror. I remain unconvinced this was never about aesthetics and not about controlling how teenage girls occupy space.

On being noticed.

The book warns that too much skin, too much leg, too much perfume, and too much makeup will get a girl "whistled at" rather than "loved," treating unwanted male attention as a wardrobe malfunction rather than, you know, someone else's behavior. While this is still true today, I'm too old for it to happen to me anymore and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

On eating at a friend's house.

It tells girls to take a little of everything but eat like "a frail 19th century beauty," essentially instructing teenagers to perform hunger management as a personality trait at dinner parties. Aaaand this is why we were giving our daughters eating disorders up until the 2000s. That's stopped now, right guys?

On post-vacation weight.

The book hoped that any weight gained over a summer holiday would be "temporary," and offered dressing tips to minimize it in the meantime, as though a body changing sizes seasonally was a crisis requiring a wardrobe strategy. See my previous eating disorder statement.

Why I'm not just laughing at this

It would be easy to read this as a punchline and move on. But this was mainstream advice. In print for actual teenagers, treating thinness, quietness, and being just visible enough to be liked (but not so visible you'd be whistled at) as the whole curriculum of growing up female. The fact that it reads as absurd now is the good news. It means something actually changed.

Unhinged tips: The fun is gone for me

I legit used to find old school advice like this motivating. Because I have hella eating issues: EDNOS, self-diagnosed because I've read stuff like this since I was 10 years old. But now I maintain my body to stay alive these days, and not to catch a man or become prima ballerina. I'm (gratefully) reprogrammed by the new generations that your body shape and size is not your self worth. And so the fun is all gone from advice like this.

The Betty Test (For Spotting This Stuff Today)

• Does the advice control how much space I take up, physically or otherwise?
• Is my body being treated as a problem to manage rather than a body?
• Would this same advice ever be given to a teenage boy?
• Am I being told to shrink, quiet down, or perform restraint as a virtue?

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FAQ

What was Seventeen magazine like in the 1960s?

Its 1967 beauty and fashion guide blended styling tips with strict, often body- and behavior-policing advice aimed at teenage girls, reflecting the pre-feminist cultural norms of the era.

Did old teen magazines really give diet advice to teenagers?

Yes. Some vintage teen publications included explicit weight-management and restrictive-eating guidance aimed at teen readers, which by modern standards would be considered inappropriate and potentially harmful.

How has beauty magazine advice for teens changed since the 1960s?

Modern teen and beauty media has broadly moved away from explicit body-policing and restrictive-eating advice, though critiques of body image messaging in media persist across eras, including the 1990s.

Why look back at outdated beauty advice at all?

Comparing it to today highlights real progress and helps identify when similar body- or behavior-policing messaging resurfaces in a modern, less obvious form.