ArticlePeerJ2015
The relationship of female physical attractiveness to body fatness.
Article in PeerJ, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Evolutionary Theories and Men's Preferences for Women's Waist-to-Hip Ratio: Which Hypotheses Remain? A Systematic Review.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Pooled it
- No impact of hunger on male perception of female physical attractiveness in relation to adiposity: a randomized controlled trial.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2020Trial
- Testosterone mediates life-history trade-offs in female mammals.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Longitudinal associations between BMI, ideal-actual BMI gap, and body shape concern among young Chinese females.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Exploring Within-Gender Differences in Friendships Using an Online Social Network.Archives of sexual behavior · 2024Article
- Gait pattern can alter aesthetic visual impression from a third-person perspective.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Distress and impacts on daily life from appearance changes due to cancer treatment: A survey of 1,034 patients in Japan.Global health & medicine · 2023Article
- Genes influence facial attractiveness through intricate biological relationships.PLoS genetics · 2019Article
- Sex matters: The effects of biological sex on adipose tissue biology and energy metabolism.Redox biology · 2017Review
- Do the Low WHRs and BMIs Judged Most Attractive Indicate Better Health?Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behaviorArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Aspects of the female body may be attractive because they signal evolutionary fitness. Greater body fatness might reflect greater potential to survive famines, but individuals carrying larger fat stores may have poor health and lower fertility in non-famine conditions. A mathematical statistical model using epidemiological data linking fatness to fitness traits, predicted a peaked relationship between fatness and attractiveness (maximum at body mass index (BMI) = 22.8 to 24.8 depending on ethnicity and assumptions). Participants from three Caucasian populations (Austria, Lithuania and the UK), three Asian populations (China, Iran and Mauritius) and four African populations (Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal) rated attractiveness of a series of female images varying in fatness (BMI) and waist to hip ratio (WHR). There was an inverse linear relationship between physical attractiveness and body fatness or BMI in all populations. Lower body fat was more attractive, down to at least BMI = 19. There was no peak in the relationship over the range we studied in any population. WHR was a significant independent but less important factor, which was more important (greater r (2)) in African populations. Predictions based on the fitness model were not supported. Raters appeared to use body fat percentage (BF%) and BMI as markers of age. The covariance of BF% and BMI with age indicates that the role of body fatness alone, as a marker of attractiveness, has been overestimated.
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