Study Finds the Perfect Ratio of Attractiveness

Gksksla writes "Scientists in Australia and Hong Kong have conducted a comprehensive study to discover how different body measurements correspond with ratings of female attractiveness. The study, published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, found that across cultural divides young, tall and long armed women were considered the most attractive."

Comments

Golden Ratio

[C_Kode]

Wasn't this already figured out by Ancient Greek mathematicians? :)

Long arms? Uh, no

[Anonymous Coward]

Slender-ish arms are attractive and tend to look longer (although they are normally not actually longer).

Arm shape is one thing I look at to determine how healthy a woman is. Chubby arms on a thin woman indicate a potential fat woman in disguise. Too thin of arms indicate a potential eating disorder, drug problem, or who knows (ie. mental issues if true).

I don't go by these alone but they do shape my initial impression.

Did They Account for Individual Taste?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Personally, I like short girls for some reason. I don't know why, but I've always had a thing for girls that are 5'4 or below. I think it's because the short ones are usually zesty packets of spunk and attitude. Nothing like short-woman syndrome to make a girl the right balance of crazy and fierce.

Re:Did They Account for Individual Taste?

[IndustrialComplex]

short? the average height of women in the USA is 5'4".

You will have people talking about 'short' guys who are average or above average height. As a result, if you fall near average, you have to state your height as exaggerated in order to avoid being labeled 'short'.

I think there is also a disconnect in referring to height in a numeric manner. It's interesting when you look at it from a statistical standpoint, I've seen people refer to guys who were 5'9" and 5'10" as short.

You will hear people refer to women below 5'6" as being short, which doesn't make sense when looking at the statistical data.

Re:Did They Account for Individual Taste?

[CAIMLAS]

I think there is also a disconnect in referring to height in a numeric manner. It's interesting when you look at it from a statistical standpoint, I've seen people refer to guys who were 5'9" and 5'10" as short.

In some parts of the country, that is short.

I'm 6'2" - just barely. My brother is 6'3", maybe a little more. My boss is 6'2" and thick (280lb or so). My best friend is 6'5". My dad is 6'1" (or was before he started getting old). Other friends and acquaintances are anywhere from 5'11 up through 6'6" and various builds (most around the 6'1" height).

My FIL is one of the "shorter" men I know - at 5'10".

No, it doesn't have much to do with the group I hang with: out here, people really are taller and bigger than the average (don't ask why, I don't know). This is particularly true in many small towns (visit one, and I feel short. Oi!) in the area where people spent their days working with their hands.

5'6" is short, as it's uncommon for women to be over 5'10" (the height for 'professional' modeling, I hear). Sure, that's a 4" window, but most seem to be near the lower end. There also seem to be more "tall" than "under 5'4", so someone at 5'4" is an exception. (My wife is 5'6" and is considered "short", being several inches shorter than most of her peers).

When I go to (say) the coasts of the US (NE corridor or California) I'd find myself having a good head's view over the crowds - I am 'quite tall' there, whereas here, I'm relatively normal. (Hell, due to a slight build, I'd even be considered small.) I'm not "the tall guy", I'm "the skinny guy".

Re:Did They Account for Individual Taste?

[Spectre]

In some parts of the country, that is short.

No, it doesn't have much to do with the group I hang with: out here, people really are taller and bigger than the average (don't ask why, I don't know).

When I go to (say) the coasts of the US (NE corridor or California) I'd find myself having a good head's view over the crowds - I am 'quite tall' there, whereas here, I'm relatively normal. (Hell, due to a slight build, I'd even be considered small.) I'm not "the tall guy", I'm "the skinny guy".

I'll second all of the above. The country was settled by people of different ethnicities area by area. California and New England are shorter than the people in the midwest.

I don't know if this is because of the backgrounds of the people settling in different regions of the USA or if it is because in the midwest we grew up on hormone-laced beef, but it is a phenomenon that is at least correct from a biased viewpoint (mine).

Re:Did They Account for Individual Taste?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Perhaps, healthy eating keeps women (and men) more attractive and healthy as they get into their 30s, 40s and beyond. I might actually try out a few of their weird recipes, at least for an occasional meal.

Well, considering most of the vitamins that keep skin and cells healthy come from fruits and vegetables, I could see that being the case. On the other hand, I would bet that most of those people have a pretty hard time building a significant amount of muscle, and many of them may be iron deficient. I know that one of my close friends eats almost a pound of meat a day, if not more. He certainly doesn't have the healthiest skin, but man, he packs on muscle like a madman when he works out.

Re:Did They Account for Individual Taste?

[Rick17JJ]

I am not sure about the raw vegans, but at least most vegetarians and ordinary vegans (not raw) include beans and and grains in their diet. Most types of beans are missing one amino acid, and most grains are missing a different amino acid. Both foods have complementary proteins and if eaten within a 24 hour (or so) time period, complete protein is absorbed. Beans are surprisingly high in protein. Then there are also soy beans, which have complete protein.

One grain like cereal that vegans and vegetarians sometimes eat is quinoa, because it has more protein than most grains. Chia seeds also seem to be popular for similar reasons.

I mostly just went around tasting their samples of food and even purchased my lunch and dinner at the event. I am not actually sure what was in most of what I was eating. For lunch, I had a faux tuna wrap "ninja" sandwich wrapped in a piece of dried seaweed and filled with veggies and tomatoes and faux tuna.

For dinner I had an uncooked raw veggie burger made from pistachio nuts and other ingredients, along with a side dish of rice and a salad. I also had a piece of raw uncooked pizza made from who knows what. The pizza tasted very good even though it was cold and did not have any cheese in it.

I also had a sample of some kind of uncooked cereal made from chia seeds and other ingredients. My understanding was that chia seeds are quite high in protein and the good omega-3 fatty acids (just like salmon and sardines).

If possible, it would be interesting to compare raw vegans other healthy diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, vegans (not raw), and vegetarians. If there are festivals for those events, it would be interesting to see how those people compare. As for myself, I suspect that the small amounts of extremely lean grass fed buffalo meat, when eaten in small portions like I do, would not have enough saturated fat to hurt me very much. The grass fed buffalo meat has not been fattened in a feedlot with corn, like most beef is. It is very very lean.

Although I am not a vegan, I have managed to slowly loose 40 lbs and add muscle and aerobic capacity over the last 4 years through 1 hour per day of exercise and healthier eating. I have done that while still eating as much as I wanted. But, my weight loss has leveled off at a point where I am still somewhat somewhat overweight. I am 55 years old.

Re:bad survey.

[JWSmythe]

    It doesn't look like the same size provides an adequate room for edge cases to not skew the results.

    At one company, I did scored ratings. It seemed like a big complicated system, but it boiled down to be pretty simple. People were voting 1 to 5 on a set of pictures. There were thousands of sets handled by the system at any given point, and multiple millions of votes stored in our logs.

    In the first 10 results, we could have a tremendously skewed result. Say a 4.5
    In the first 100 results, we'd see them drift. maybe now 2.5
    In the first 10,000 results, it would be closer to a consistent number. 4.2, for the sake of this example.

    To encourage voting, and reduce complaints of "where's my score", we didn't publish any scores until there were at least 50 results. It made for the occasional complaint of "why did my score change so much", which we could address by providing their logs (timestamps and votes).

    So, 100 guys in Australia, and an unknown sample group in Hong Kong? Nope, not good enough, especially where they're trying to say it covers 50% of the world population.

Re:Pop culture.

[Anonymous Coward]

Being model thin is not comfortable either. I'm naturally very thin ( I literally can't gain weight even when trying )
and it makes me lightheaded, I sweat easily, I freeze easily, it's uncomfortable to sit on hard chairs etc..
Silly thing is there's numerous girls who want to be this thin, and some of them compliment me for it. Personally I wish
  I could gain weight. Unfortunately my body does not seem to want that. I'm pretty sure it's not an eating disorder,
  and my diet has plenty of protein and carbs. The doctors can't find any medical or lifestyle problems that would have
caused it so I'm guessing I'm just going to have to put up with it.