ArticleEvolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior
Do the Low WHRs and BMIs Judged Most Attractive Indicate Higher Fertility?
Article in Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior. 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
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
- Testosterone mediates life-history trade-offs in female mammals.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- A systematic review of the association between women's morphological traits and fertility.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Substantial but Misunderstood Human Sexual Dimorphism Results Mainly From Sexual Selection on Males and Natural Selection on Females.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome are diametric disorders.Evolutionary applications · 2021Review
- Male Mating Expectations in Brazilian and American Samples.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- The Epistemology of Evolutionary Psychology Offers a Rapprochement to Cultural Psychology.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Review
- Does Nubility Indicate More Than High Reproductive Value? Nubile Primiparas' Pregnancy Outcomes in Evolutionary Perspective.Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behaviorArticle
- 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
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We examine the widely accepted view that very low waist-hip ratios and low body mass indices (BMIs) in women in well-nourished populations are judged attractive by men because these features reliably indicate superior fertility. In both subsistence and well-nourished populations, relevant studies of fertility do not support this view. Rather studies indicate lower fertility in women with anthropometric values associated with high attractiveness. Moreover, low maternal BMI predisposes to conditions that compromise infant survival. Consistent with these findings from the literature, new data from a large U.S. sample of women past reproductive age show that women with lower BMIs in the late teens had fewer live births, controlling for education, marital history, and race. They also had later menarche and earlier menopause compared with women with higher youth BMIs. In addition, data from the 2013 U.S. natality database show that mothers with lower prepregnancy BMIs have an increased risk of producing both low-birth-weight and preterm infants controlling for other relevant variables-conditions that would have adversely affected fitness over almost all of human evolution. Thus, a review of the relevant literature and three new tests fail to support the view that highly attractive women are more fertile.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.