I made a cheese omelet this morning. I mention this not because I want to bore you with the minutiae of my life — though that is one of the perks of this job — but because while I was making said cheese omelet, I began to contemplate the paradoxical nature of artifice.

(Can we all just bow our heads in a moment of silence for my dearly departed sanity? Thank you.)

Anyway, as I draped a disturbingly elastic square of pasteurized processed cheese-food over the slowly-cooking eggs, I was struck by the contrast in colors: the fresh yellow of the egg yolks threw the cheese-food’s fluorescent orange hue into sharp, radioactive relief. It was thoroughly unappetizing.

Of course, I ate it anyway. But while I was eating it, I began to wonder why dairy manufacturers dye cheddar and American cheeses such a shocking shade of orange — or, for that matter, any shade of orange at all, when the natural color is more of an off-white. I did a bit of Internet investigation on the matter and discovered a wealth of information. First, by taking a “What type of cheese are you?” quiz, I discovered that I am chevres, which means that I am “a cheese of different shapes, sizes, and textures.” (And that right there is why I love the Internet.)

Second, and slightly more applicable, I learned that cheese dyeing originated because of the way that cheese color would fluctuate naturally with the seasons. It was dyed a pale yellow year-round for consistency, and that yellow morphed into the Technicolor orange of which we are so fond today. Now people are so used to it that they prefer it.

At this point, having just spent 30 solid minutes thinking about cheese, my mind began to wander to a related topic: mannequins. Bear with me.

An article in The New York Times last Sunday describes the revolutionary new approach that some mannequin manufacturers are trying out: making mannequins that have more realistic proportions. Which is to say “slightly less outrageously unrealistic proportions”; one new mannequin, Goddess, has gone from 32A-23-33 to a whopping 34B-25-35.5. Somebody get that thing some Hollywood 48-Hour Miracle Diet before it adds another cup size!

The new, curvier mannequins have received rave reviews from customers and store owners across the country, who say that the more realistic forms acknowledge the diversity of the human body. The mannequins are also better for displaying low-rise and stretch jeans, which hang unattractively loose on the skinnier forms. Consumers are more accurately represented, and pants look more appealing; this seems like a winning idea on all fronts.

But not everyone is happy. Some say that the skinnier forms carry the clothing better, making it more attractive to customers. Michael Steward, an executive with mannequin manufacturer Adel Rootstein, sees the push for curvier mannequins as a passing fad, stating that people “want to see what they’re trying to look like,” rather than what they actually look like. He also regards the mannequins as “a little sexist,” because they are “not creating an image of a woman as an elegant creature. It’s a little bit down and dirty, a little crass.”

I hope it goes without saying that it’s more than “a little sexist” to equate the real female body with crudity and assert that the proper portrayal of women is as “elegant creature[s],” whatever that means. The concept is uncomfortably reminiscent of the “separate spheres” ideology of the 19th century, which delegated morality to women and purported that it was their God-ordained duty to keep their randy, impulsive husbands in line. But even in the 19th century, women’s curves were celebrated, albeit through extreme corseting; now, secondary sexual characteristics like breasts and wider hips are “crass.”

I also was under the impression that the goal of the fashion designer is to create clothing that looks good on actual people rather than giant plastic dolls, so one would think that mannequins shaped like normal — if somewhat slimmer than average — bodies would do a fine job of displaying wares. The problem here is that designers are making apparel to fit and flatter mannequins and eating-disordered runway models, rather than the real-life consumer.

And this is where the cheese comes in. You see, the female body is like cheese, and not just because (like chevres) it comes in “different shapes, sizes, and textures,” or because (like Swiss) it has a bunch of orifices.

Just as the fake orange color of cheese has its origins in natural color variations, the female mannequin is an exaggerated version of the ideal female form. But paradigms have been flipped, and now we’re dyeing our cheese to make it look “normal” while women starve themselves to wear clothes that have been tailored to look good on artificial bodies. Aren’t our products supposed to cater to our needs, rather than the other way around?

You can do something about it. First of all, stop buying those tube-tops that poof out below the bust, because although they might look fantastic on a grossly stunted mannequin, they make you look like a pregnant teenager. Then, take a trip down to your friendly neighborhood Wegmans and buy some white cheese. If the paradigms have flipped once, they can do it again. And this time you’ll meet the RDA for calcium.