Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences

However, these questions were not specifically designed to ad this particular hypothesis. Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar Lassek, W. Article Google Scholar Epel, E.

Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences -
However, for older women, being currently pregnant is negatively correlated with the expected number of additional children. Some authors argue that the relationship between current pregnancy and future fertility depends on the fertility rate of the population: if the total fertility rate of the population is low e.

In traditional societies, where total fertility rates sometimes exceed 6, if a woman is pregnant, she may nevertheless conceive at least a few more children Marlowe and Wetsman, To sum-up, choosing a mate who is already pregnant will, most of the time, decrease the number of potential descendants of an individual, but the size of the effect depends on the woman's age, the total fertility rate in the population and the type of relationship short or long term.

Moreover, choosing a long-term mate who is pregnant with the child of another man entails additional evolutionary costs, because investing in a non-biological child decreases the amount of investment an individual can invest in his own descendants.

Lastly, Singh suggests that choosing a mate carrying the baby of another man could increase the risks of violence from the jealous current mate which could impact the survival or future reproductive success of the individual suffering from the attack.

Altogether, mating with a woman with a high WHR because it indicates current pregnancy will have, on average, a negative effect on an individual' reproductive success.

Added to the fact that WHR is a reliable and distinctive cue of current pregnancy, this gives solid theoretical support in favor of the present hypothesis.

To my knowledge, only two studies have investigated the role of WHR on the perception of current pregnancy Furnham et al. The results confirm that a low WHR is associated with a lower perceived probability of current pregnancy.

The perception of pregnancy using WHR seems obvious for the last stages of pregnancy, based on profile views or in 3D.

However, and even if the conscious awareness of a pregnancy is not mandatory for men's preference to evolve, it would be interesting to explore when exactly people start to detect pregnancy, using 2D images including frontal, back and profile views of women at different pregnancy stages.

It stipulates that WHR is a way to estimate the number of children or number of pregnancies that a woman has previously had in her life. This change in body shape sometimes referred to as covert maternal depletion is due to the mobilization of fat from the lower parts of the body to meet the needs of the developing child as well as looser abdominal muscles.

This may be interpreted as a life history strategy for allocating energy between competing gluteofemoral fat depots for reproduction, and central fat depots for maintenance and survival Cashdan, ; Wells et al.

This phenomenon has been observed in various countries: Brazil Rodrigues and Costa, , Sweden Bjorkelund et al. However, a few other studies find that parity has a negligible or null effect on WHR Lanska et al. Indeed, the parity effect seems to dissipate over time Wells et al.

Note that this does not affect the plausibility of the present hypothesis, as the effect of parity on WHR should be visible at the time of mate choice relatively young. Women's limited reproductive potential and resources mean that, even controlling for age, each child already born reduces the future number of children a man can sire with the woman if he mates with her long-term Symons, ; Sugiyama, Parity status influences the survival and quality of future descendants.

For example, both high parity and nulliparity are associated with increased risks during childbirth and lower birthweights Kiely et al. A recent pregnancy also increases the probability of current infertility because of lactational amenorrhea.

Finally, as with current pregnancy, higher parity increases the costs linked to investment in genetically unrelated children. In conclusion, even when the risks associated with first births are taken into account, choosing a mate with a low parity should have an overall positive impact on individuals' reproductive success especially for long term relationships , and WHR as a cue of parity is likely to play a significant role in the selection of men's preferences for a low WHR.

To my knowledge, only one study investigates the effect of WHR on perceived parity, with the results validating that women with a higher WHR are perceived as having a higher number of children Andrews et al.

This study needs replications in populations other than undergraduate students from the USA, but the results suggest that people are using WHR as a cue of parity. Healthy women of similar age and reproductive history vary in their ability to become pregnant and achieve a live birth, and WHR would be an indicator of this ability.

The most direct evidences in favor of this hypothesis comes from a few clinical studies showing that women with a lower WHR have a higher probability of conception in the case of in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination Zaadstra et al.

But more recent studies find no relationships between women's WHR and their likelihood of conceiving after induction of ovulation Imani et al.

These studies are informative because they are directly linked to fecundity, but women seeking medical assistance to conceive do not represent the ideal population to investigate factors of natural fecundity.

A few studies find that high WHRs are correlated with a later age at first live birth Kaye et al. An indirect way to detect the link between fecundity and WHR is to look at the menstrual cycles or at the physiological factors linked to both WHR and fecundity.

A few studies indicate that WHR is linked to menstrual abnormalities Hartz et al. Similarly, one study finds that women with low WHRs have lower endocervical pH Jenkins et al.

However, these results seems not to hold for non-obese young women see Lassek and Gaulin, b for a richer discussion on this topic. Finally, one study finds that WHR decreases around ovulation Kirchengast and Gartner, , suggesting that WHR might also reveal whether a woman is at peak cycle fertility.

However, these results should be interpreted with caution, as others fail to replicate this effect Bleske-Rechek et al. To conclude, there are some indirect lines of evidence that WHR could be linked to fecundity, but this effect is mostly found when high WHR is associated with other factors as obesity or older age and might thus be negligible in populations of young and non-obese women Lassek and Gaulin, b.

Moreover, these studies almost exclusively focus on WEIRD populations, limiting even more the generalization of these results. Choosing highly fecund mates will increase the reproductive success of a man both for long-term and short-term relationships. In the case of a short-term relationship, it will simply increase the probability of a pregnancy.

In the case of a long-term relationship, it will increase the number of potential descendants by reducing both interbirth intervals and the period before the first child thus increasing the reproductive window.

However, in light of the lack of evidence of a link between WHR and young and non-obese women's fecundity, this hypothesis does not benefit from strong empirical support.

A few studies find that a low WHR is associated with higher perceived fecundity Singh, b ; Furnham et al. I suggest that this lack of clarity is mainly due to the ambiguity of the questions asked to the participants. The main issue is the absence of any indication about the time frame. For example, high parity linked to a high WHR , is positively associated with past fecundity, but negatively associated with future fecundity [see section Cue of Parity Number of Previous Pregnancies ].

Thus, in the absence of additional information, it is impossible to know if the participants are rating past, current or future fecundity. The answer probably depends on other cues provided in the survey, or vary from one participant to another, which could explain the inconclusive results.

Future tests of perceived fecundity should include the notion of time. The idea that fat located around women's hips is qualitatively different from fat found in other body regions, and is used specifically for reproductive functions, exists in the literature since Singh, b , see Figure 2.

This hypothesis has been progressively enriched, stating that a mother's WHR is linked to the development of her fetus and infant. WHR is, by construction, positively correlated with the quantity of fat situated at the waist level abdominal fat , and negatively correlated with fat quantity located around the hip gluteofemoral fat.

There is evidence that gluteofemoral fat in women is specific to reproduction: the storing of gluteofemoral fat is high compared to males and to other body parts during human female development Fredriks et al.

Moreover, even with restricted food intake, gluteofemoral fat is metabolically protected from use until late pregnancy and lactation, when it is selectively mobilized Rebuffé-Scrive et al.

The hypothesis derived from these observations is that the quantity of gluteofemoral fat would have an effect on the development of the fetus during pregnancy and of the infant through lactation. This reproductive fat appears to be of particular importance for brain development, as gluteofemoral fat is the main source of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids that are critical for fetal and infant neural development.

Additionally, it seems that abdominal fat inhibits the availability of these neurodevelopment resources abdominal fat decreases the amount of the enzyme Δ-5 desaturase, which is rate limiting for the synthesis of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids; Lassek and Gaulin, Consequently, WHR is an indicator of the quantity and availability of the fatty acids needed for fetal and infant brain development.

In favor of this hypothesis, a study shows that women with lower WHRs and their children have significantly higher cognitive test scores Lassek and Gaulin, Moreover, one study finds that a low WHR correlates with higher birth weight Pawłowski and Dunbar, , but other studies found the opposite Brown et al.

To conclude, a woman's WHR seems to be a promising indicator of future fetus and infant neural development although further data from different countries are needed , and additional evidence is required to confirm the link between pre-pregnancy WHR and fetal growth.

Mating with a woman able to provide enough resources during the development of the fetus and infant increases the survival and quality of the descendants. Offspring with higher cognitive abilities are likely to have a better rate of survival and reproductive success than individuals who suffer from worse conditions during their brain development.

A low birthweight is associated with higher infant mortality Chase, ; Behrman et al. However, a low birthweight is also associated with variables which may have no effect on the father's reproductive success e.

In conclusion, choosing a mate with a lower WHR if it is linked to higher resources for fetal and infant brain development and maybe general growth , will have a generally positive impact on a man' reproductive success.

However, the size of this effect according to the environmental conditions should be explored. For example, how does this trait impact the number of descendants in the next generation when conditions are more favorable to faster life history strategies?

To my knowledge, only one study explores the effect of WHR on the perceived quality of the descendants Andrews et al. Andrews et al. The health conditions which are referred to in the literature on WHR and attractiveness are: cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, strokes, myocardial infarction, diabetes, gallblader disease, kidney diseases, pancreatitis, lung function impairment, cretinism, psychiatric disorder, various cancers and preeclampsia.

A high WHR is correlated with many health issues. This claim is supported by abundant evidence for reviews see Björntorp, a , b , ; Manolopoulos et al.

However, these findings are based on relatively old women or men often 60 years old or more, almost never before 30 , mostly suffering from some degree of obesity, raising the possibility that this relationship is not present for evolutionary relevant reproductive-age populations Lassek and Gaulin, a.

The consequences for reproductive success of mating with a woman with a low WHR because it is a cue of her health are not straightforward.

First, the cited health conditions are not contagious, thus the survival of the woman's mate cannot be directly affected. Secondly, most of the chronic diseases associated with WHR are recent, from an evolutionary point of view, and they are associated with present-day environments, lifestyle and alimentation Eaton and Eaton, ; Groop, Third, even if we assume that these health issues were common in our evolutionary past, most of them appear late in life, after the end of women's reproductive life.

Thus, most of the heath issues linked to high WHRs are unlikely to affect the number of descendants of a woman's mate Lassek and Gaulin, a. A few exceptions in the list of WHR-related health issues can be made, however. First, a high WHR early in pregnancy seems to be correlated to higher risks of preeclampsia a condition which can be fatal to both the fetus and mother; Yamamoto et al.

However, evidence is needed to see if preeclampsia is predicted by WHR before pregnancy when mate choice occurs. One paper indicates that a high WHR can be an indicator of cretinism a syndrome often linked to infertility; Streeter and McBurney, However, WHR is probably not a very good cue to detect cretinism, as this health condition generates other physical modifications, more easily noticeable than WHR Chen and Hetzel, Another exception is the polycystic ovarian syndrome.

This condition can affect the fertility of young women, but only when the syndrome is associated with obesity Pall et al. And again, the prevalence of this condition in our evolutionary past is unclear.

Health later in life could influence the survival and quality of descendants in another way, through maternal investment: long-term health and longevity increase the probability of having a living and healthy mother able to provide care for children and grandchildren Sear et al.

Thus, theoretically, WHR as a cue of health could have played a role in the selection of preferences for a low WHR. However, this hypothesis holds only if WHR at a younger age at the time of mate choice is a reliable predictor of health later in life, excluding diseases which are evolutionary novel.

Longitudinal studies in non-WEIRD populations are needed to explore this possibility. Alternatively, good health at old age could be related to genetic quality. Descendants from individuals with higher longevity could have a better health, even at younger ages.

In this case, men's preferences for a low WHR as a cue to health could evolve through indirect selection. Cross-generational studies are needed to test this good genes hypothesis. However, this hypothesis could receive new theoretical support through the maternal and grandmaternal investment or the genetic quality hypotheses, but only if some of the above predictions links between women's WHR at young age and health at old age, or health of the descendants, excluding evolutionary novel diseases are supported by evidence.

Participants are asked to rate the health of the stimuli in many studies Singh, a , b , , ; Singh and Luis, ; Singh and Young, ; Furnham et al. In general, a low WHR is associated with better perceived health. Interestingly, however, a few studies investigating non-WEIRD populations find a null or positive effect of WHR on perceived health Yu and Shepard, ; Wetsman and Marlowe, ; Tovée et al.

This support the idea that the association between high WHR and poor health might be valid in contemporary western countries only. Even if, as explained earlier, the perception of health using WHR is not a mandatory step to validate the hypothesis, more research with different stimuli and questions is needed to clarify this point.

It would also be interesting to see if young women's WHR is linked to their perceived future health and longevity. One could also explore if individuals have any idea of the kind of diseases associated with WHR.

They find a negative relationship between women's WHR and the projected offspring quality, in accordance with the hypothesis of WHR as a cue of genetic quality. The idea that WHR could be a sign of infection by parasites is not recent e.

Some parasites, including intestinal worms, can increase waist size through oedema while causing weight loss, which will result in a higher WHR Cross, ; Kucik et al. Parasite load can affect survival and fertility. Moreover, most parasites are contagious, and mating with a woman carrying parasites increases the probability of being infected.

As such, WHR as a cue of parasite load can have an effect on a man's health and survival, as well as an effect on the number, survival and quality of descendants he can sire with the infected woman. This effect remains to be quantified and will certainly vary according to the frequencies and types of parasites present in the environment.

WHR as a cue of parasite load is an interesting hypothesis, but it has been largely overlooked and evidence is by consequence lacking. There is no specific research on the perception of parasite load based on WHRs. However, many studies explore the effect of WHR on perceived general health see section Cue of Health.

One paper mentions that a high WHR could be a sign of Kwashiorkor, a form of malnutrition Streeter and McBurney, Indeed, WHR can increases in some cases of malnutrition because of the presence of an oedema enlarging waist size Golden, ; Waterlow, A diet rich in fibrous food can also increases waist size and thus WHR.

Malnutrition increases the morbidity and mortality of a woman and her children, and might also decreases her fecundity Mosley, ; Osteria, ; Hernández-Julián et al. Choosing a mate suffering from malnutrition will thus decrease one's reproductive success.

The prevalence of malnutrition involving a high WHR during our evolutionary past should be explored, to establish if it could have represented an evolutionary force for the preferences toward low WHRs.

Concerning diet, it is not clear if a large waist reveals a good ability to digest fibrous food or a poor ability to assimilate this kind of food. If the latter is true, a higher WHR will be associated with less resources available for pregnancy and lactation, leading to lower survival and quality of descendants.

The opposite will be true if a large waist is associated with a better ability to digest fibrous food. The hypotheses of WHR as a cue of malnutrition or diet or ability to digest some type of food have been mainly ignored, and evidence is thus missing.

There is no specific research on the perception of diet or malnutrition based on WHR. This hypothesis is mentioned only once in the literature Singh, It stipulates that the WHR of an adult woman could be an indication of her developmental conditions before her birth.

A negative link between adult WHR and birth weight, or placental weight to birth weight ratio an indicator of retarded fetal growth , has been found, but this study is only composed of men over 50 years old Law et al. To my knowledge, there is no empirical evidence showing that young women's WHR is a reliable cue of their fetal development.

But a low birthweight also has some negative outcomes later in life Bateson et al. To conclude, WHR as a cue of a woman's fetal condition could have, in theory, a negative, positive or null effect on her mate's reproductive success.

Combined with the fact that the link between WHR and fetal conditions has been shown for older men only, this hypothesis lacks both empirical and theoretical support.

WHR is, by definition, linked to hip size, which is indicative of underlying pelvic skeletal morphology. It is unclear, however, how much of the variation in WHR is explained by pelvic size it seems that most of the variance in WHR is due to fat storage on the hip and waist regions.

The size of the pelvis determines the size of the bony pelvic canal through which the fetus passes during a delivery. As such, a wider pelvis reduces the risk of obstructed labor Caldwell and Moloy, ; Stålberg et al.

In the absence of healthcare, women who are unable to deliver their babies perish, along with their babies. Moreover, obstructed labor can lead to many long-term health issues on both sides, which can influence future survival and fertility.

Thus, a woman's small pelvis will decrease the number of descendants a man can sire with her. However, a large pelvis can be an obstacle to efficient locomotion Leutenegger, ; Lovejoy, ; Ruff, but see Warrener et al.

A woman with a lower ability to walk will have higher difficulties to secure resources for her children, which will decrease their survival or quality.

Altogether, stabilizing selection is expected to be operating on female hip size, as well as on men's preferences for this trait.

To conclude, the evolutionary costs and benefits of a wide pelvis seem more appropriate to explain the origin of the sexually dimorphic hip size via natural selection, than to explain men's preferences for a specific WHR. Female pelvic size and shape are the result of two conflicting evolutionary pressures: bipedal locomotion and parturition of a highly encephalized fetus Leutenegger, ; Lovejoy, ; Rosenberg and Trevathan, but see Leong, ; Betti and Manica, It is possible that the link between pelvic size and childbirth and locomotion contributed to the selection of men's preference for an average hip size, but more research is needed to confirm its effect on men's reproductive success.

To my knowledge, nobody has tested the effect of WHR on perceived difficulties during childbirth, or on perceived locomotion.

Everything else being equal, a lower WHR will lower the center of mass of the body. One study uses body measurements of young women to experimentally establish the correlation between WHR and the center of body mass Pawłowski and Grabarczyk, However, the correlation is not very strong in their sample of students, and more data is required.

In advanced pregnancy and during lactation, when the infant is being carried, a bipedal female has to contend with a substantial increase in the anterior load above the center of gravity Pawłowski, Fat deposits in the buttocks and thighs may prevent the center of gravity from moving upwards and forwards, and facilitate walking and foraging during pregnancy and lactation.

Choosing a mate with a lower center of gravity could increase the survival of the fetus and infants a man would sire with this woman, as she would be less likely to fall and injure the fetus, the infant or herself, and she would be more successful in foraging or escaping predation during these critical periods.

A lower center of gravity would also mean a lower energetic cost to maintain balance, and thus an increase in resources available to be directed toward the descendants. Thus, a woman's center of gravity could have an effect on her mate's reproductive success Pawlowski and Dunbar, ; Pawlowski, However, as with the pelvic size argument, this hypothesis seems more suitable to explain the origin of dimorphic body shapes in the human species than to explain men's preferences.

To my knowledge, there has been no research concerning WHR and perceived center of body mass, or perceived walking abilities during pregnancy and lactation. Depending on the author, a high WHR could be a sign of exogenous stress, a cue of a poor ability to cope with stress, or a cue of an effective response to stress.

Compared to women with low WHRs, women with high WHRs report more chronic stress and have more psychological and psychiatric issues Björntorp, b , According to Björntorp, a high WHR might be interpreted as a sign of an inability to cope with environmental stress. One experiment shows that women with high WHRs evaluate laboratory challenges as more threatening, performed more poorly on them, and reported more chronic stress Epel et al.

However, Cashdan draws an opposite conclusion from the same observations Cashdan, Cortisol the levels of which are associated with WHR enables the mind and body to respond effectively to stress, by shifting energy substrates from storage sites to the bloodstream and by increasing blood pressure and cardiac output.

As part of this response, cortisol increases WHR by increasing visceral fat. Conversely, stress-induced cortisol secretion is greater among women with more central fat Epel et al. To conclude, WHR seems to be related to stress responses, but it is not clear if a low WHR is a cue of a good or a poor ability to cope with environmental stress.

The stress responses in women with high WHRs may be maladaptive in most WEIRD populations, yet it could be adaptive where conditions are extreme or where stress is episodic rather than constant Cashdan, If a high WHR is a sign of inadequate coping with stress, women with a high WHR may bear descendants of lower quality because they may be less able to secure resources or provide care for them.

However, the opposite is true if a high WHR is a sign of a better ability to respond to stress. Maternal stress during fetal growth can lead to a lower birthweight. Stress also has epigenetic effects on offspring' life history trajectories and health Worthman and Kuzara, However, according to the adaptationist life history perspective, these effects could be associated with a phenotype adapted to the environment Bateson et al.

To conclude, it is unclear if choosing a woman with a lower WHR, as a cue of stress responses, would have a positive, neutral or negative impact on a man's reproductive success.

The answer will probably differ according to the environment, and could lead to a preference for a relatively high WHR in some cases Cashdan, Overall, this hypothesis lacks clarity. Nevertheless, the link between stress and WHR is a valuable explanation of the variability of women's WHRs Cashdan, To my knowledge, the effect of WHR on perceived stress, or ability to cope with stress, has not been investigated.

It has been suggested that a preference for a relatively high WHR could be adaptive in some environments because the hormonal profile associated with high WHRs high androgen and cortisol, low estrogen may favor success in resource competition, particularly under stressful and difficult circumstances Cashdan, High androgen levels in women are associated both with higher WHR Evans et al.

Androgens also increase muscle mass and physical strength Bhasin et al. Unfortunately, these studies have been conducted in western countries only, limiting the generalization of the results to other populations. Androgens also shape features other than WHR including facial traits, body features and voice; Abitbol et al.

More importantly, men could use more direct cues of the ability to access resources e. According to this hypothesis, having a relatively high WHR can increase a woman's survival and reproductive success, because she will be more able to work hard to support herself and her children, compete directly for resources for them, and cope with resource scarcity.

Most of these effects will translate into positive effects on her mate's reproductive success. In this case, the optimal female WHR for herself and her mate is likely to vary with the circumstances. In societies where women are expected to provide most of the food, through hard physical work and competition, the balance should be tipped toward a hormonal profile consistent with a higher WHR.

In more benign conditions, where women get most of their resources from investing men, a hormonal profile consistent with a low WHR might be more adaptive Cashdan, Overall, as proposed by Cashdan herself, this hypothesis is more likely to explain the variations in women's WHRs between environments and within lifetime than to account for men's preferences Cashdan, However, we cannot exclude that the link between WHR and women's ability to acquire resources might play a role in the variations observed in the exact value of the preferred WHR between populations.

One study investigating perceived aggressiveness finds no effect of WHR Singh, Another study finds no effect of WHR on factors linked to perceived ambition, independence, self-confidence and success Henss, Two studies find that figures with low WHRs are rated as more dominant than figures with high WHRs Henss, ; Buunk and Dijkstra, , which goes in the opposite direction of what is expected according to the present hypothesis.

However, these studies are designed to investigate the competition for a mate, not the competition for resources. Studies exploring the effect of WHR on the perceived ability to acquire resources and not mates are needed. This hypothesis includes two different sub-hypotheses.

The first one, suggested by Manning et al. The second hypothesis states that women with a high WHR have children exhibiting higher levels of testosterone. A few studies show that a woman's WHR is positively correlated with her number of sons Manning et al.

However, these studies are measuring women who already have children and correlate WHR with the proportion of existing sons, and it is possible that having sons results in a greater increase in WHR than does having daughters. A more recent study looking at pre-conception WHR and offspring gender finds no significant correlation Tovée et al.

Thus, there is not enough evidence supporting the fact that a high WHR would be related to more sons in the future. Manning also found that women with high WHRs tended to have children with low 2D:4D ratios Manning et al. A low 2D:4D ratio is supposed to be correlated with high testosterone levels, and the authors conclude that women with high WHRs have more masculine children.

However, there is new evidence that the 2D:4D is not a reliable indicator of the levels of testosterone Hollier et al. In conclusion, the idea that a woman with a high WHR will produce more sons or more masculine children is not supported by empirical data.

Several theories postulate that the sex of the descendants can influence an individual's reproductive success Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, ; Hiraishi et al. The advantage of sons over daughters depends on various characteristics of both the parents condition or rank and the population including dispersal patterns, inheritance of rank or resources, and degrees of local resource competition.

In some cases, one sex has a greater chance of survival and a higher potential reproductive success than the other.

In the hypothetical case where high-WHR women would have children with high testosterone levels, choosing a mate with a relatively high WHR could represent an advantage in some environments. High testosterone is related to various characteristics from muscular strength to competitive behavior; Bhasin et al.

To conclude, choosing a mate likely to produce more sons or more masculine children could increase the reproductive success of an individual, but it will depend on the environment and on the of the individuals' condition. More importantly, there is no solid evidence that WHR is an indicator of the sex ratio or masculinity of the future descendants.

This hypothesis is therefore not supported by empirical evidences. The effect of women's WHR on the perception of their children's sex ratio or masculinity has never been investigated. Interestingly, the idea that a woman's WHR is linked to her behavior and personality, as perceived by others, is found in many of the pioneering papers of this literature Singh, a , b , ; Henss, ; Singh and Luis, ; Singh and Young, ; Furnham et al.

Compared to women with a high WHR, women with a low WHR tend to have a less restricted sociosexuality, sexual intercourse at an earlier age, more sexual partners, and more extrapair copulations Mikach and Bailey, ; Hughes and Gallup, ; Fisher et al.

The question remains whether this correlation is due to different preferences and behaviors expressed by women with hormonal levels as a potential proximal mechanism , or if it only reflects the different opportunities linked to different levels of physical attractiveness.

In the latter case, this correlation cannot explain the origin of male preferences for a certain WHR [but it could potentially explain its maintenance, see section Cue of Sexy Daughters Fisherian Runaway Model ].

Estrogen, testosterone and cortisol levels, all influencing WHR, are linked to maternal investment in many species, including humans Fleming et al. Thus, WHR could be a cue of women's maternal tendencies. However, there is no direct evidence of a correlation between a woman's WHR before pregnancy and her future maternal investment.

Only a few studies provide some indirect evidences for this hypothesis, by showing a correlation between hormonal levels and reported maternal tendencies Deady and Law Smith, ; Deady et al. To conclude, more direct evidence is needed to validate the links and mechanisms between women's WHR and their behavior.

The effect of women's sexual behavior on their mates' reproductive success is double-edged. Women with unrestricted sociosexual orientations, relative to those with more restricted orientations, are more likely to engage in sex at an earlier point in their relationships and have more sexual partners Simpson and Gangestad, Thus, being attracted to women with a less restricted sociosexuality might increase the man's chances of mating.

On the other hand, women with unrestricted sociosexuality are also more willing to engage in and report higher levels of extradyadic activity Seal et al. However, these results need to be replicated in non-WEIRD populations before drawing any strong conclusions.

Mating with a woman with a less restricted sociosexuality also increases the risks of being contaminated by sexually transmitted diseases Hall, Women with unrestricted sociosexual orientations report more casual sex encounters and multiple and concurrent sexual partners, factors known to increase the risk for exposure to sexually transmitted diseases Seal and Agostinelli, ; Hoyle et al.

In sum, the effects of a less restricted sociosexuality on the mate's reproductive success are potentially positive for a short-term relationship if the occurrence of sexually transmitted diseases in the population is low, and probably null or negative for a long-term relationship.

Higher maternal investment can increase the survival and quality of the descendants. However, as stated earlier, to this date there is no direct empirical evidence supporting pre-pregnancy WHR as a cue of future maternal investment.

Overall, this hypothesis has not been explored in many papers, and lacks empirical and theoretical support. Several of the early studies investigate the effect of WHR on perceived behavioral and personality traits, but these papers do not include any theoretical background regarding WHR as a potential cue of behavior or personality Singh, a , b , ; Henss, ; Singh and Luis, ; Singh and Young, ; Furnham et al.

The absence of prediction in these papers is problematic, as the questions asked to the participants are sometimes unclear, and the authors often pooled together items which are linked to different hypotheses, making it impossible to properly test the hypothesis.

Thus, there is no good evidence that WHR is perceived as a cue of maternal behavior, but more appropriate tests with clear predictions are needed.

These results are in accordance with the hypothesis that WHR serves as a cue of sexual behavior. If a particular trait in one sex is preferred in mates, then genes disposing stronger preference for the trait could spread as they become linked with genes predisposing the preferred trait.

This hypothesis is not specific to WHR. In fact, the runaway process is almost never applied to men's preferences for WHR. Tassinary also refers to the runaway model, especially to explain why very small WHRs could theoretically be attractive to men Tassinary and Hansen, For this hypothesis to be valid, WHR needs to be genetically heritable, and there is some evidence that this is the case Donahue et al.

According to this hypothesis, daughters of women with a low WHR will have a lower WHR and thus will be more attractive. The hypothesis also requires some heritability of preferences for a low WHR. However, this heritability may cease to be observed once the preference invades the population since there will not be enough variance in the preferences left.

Importantly, this hypothesis does not require any link between WHR and any physiological quality. According to this hypothesis, a man mating with a woman with a low WHR will have more attractive daughters than if he mates with a woman with a high WHR.

These attractive daughters will have a higher mating and thus reproductive success in the next generation in a population with men attracted by low WHRs, which will have a positive impact on their father's reproductive success.

The size of the effect of women's WHR on their daughters' reproductive success remains to be identified. Indirect evidence can be found in studies showing that a low WHR is linked to a higher number of sexual partners, as a proxy for mating success Mikach and Bailey, ; Hughes and Gallup, It is important to point out that this hypothesis slightly differs from the other ones in this review because it only involves indirect selection on men's preferences.

A man's mating preference is favored by direct selection if it increases his own lifetime reproductive output, and by indirect selection if his preference increases the reproductive output of his offspring. Some authors have shown that indirect selection on mate choice via the sexual attractiveness of offspring is a weak evolutionary force relative to direct selection Kirkpatrick and Barton, However, such statements of relative strength should not be taken to imply that indirect selection is of little evolutionary importance Kokko et al.

This would be true only if direct and indirect selections were opposed, which does not seem to be the case for men's preference for WHR most of the hypotheses point toward a preference for a low WHR. This hypothesis can then be seen as an additional force reinforcing direct selection on men's preferences.

Another possible limitation regarding this hypothesis is the indirect cost of sexual antagonism. If WHR is genetically heritable for both sexes, men will have to trade off higher sexiness in daughters with lower-quality sons when choosing a mate, as optimal WHR value differ between men and women Rice and Chippindale, Measures of the heritability of WHR for both sexes is necessary to determine the existence of this indirect cost.

To my knowledge, there is no study investigating the effect of WHR on perceived attractiveness of a woman's future descendants. The only questions somehow related to this issue are asked by Andrews et al. However, these questions were not specifically designed to explore this particular hypothesis.

The conclusions of the theoretical analyses of each hypothesis presented in this paper are summarized in Table 1. This classification is obviously not definitive and is anticipated to change according to the discovery of new evidence. Table 1. Proposition of classification of the hypotheses found in the literature, according to their theoretical plausibility.

In this paper, I review the hypotheses explaining why men's preferences for a certain WHR in women may have been selected in the human species. These hypotheses are numerous, and overall, there is some solid theoretical and empirical support in favor of a selection of men's preferences for a mate with a relatively low WHR with some variations on the exact value according to the population and the environment.

However, many of the papers on this topic do not properly develop the theoretical framework, and some interesting hypotheses have been overlooked, while some of the most popular hypotheses require stronger theoretical or empirical support.

To show that men's preference for a certain WHR is an adaptation, it is necessary to demonstrate that a man choosing a mate with a certain WHR will benefit from an increase in reproductive success.

Thus, it is crucial to describe the consequences of the preference and show that it can have an impact on the quantity or quality of men's descendants. Importantly, the ultimate focus here is the reproductive success of the individual who is expressing the preference, not of the woman displaying a certain WHR.

WHR as a cue of women's fecundity is a notorious hypothesis but is not supported by empirical evidence among populations of young and non-obese women which is the population of interest for the hypothesis. On the other hand, two hypotheses which are particularly good candidates WHR as a cue of current pregnancy and parity are too often forgotten in the literature.

Some hypotheses are promising but have been largely overlooked e. WHR as a cue of sex ratio and levels of testosterone in descendants is not supported by empirical evidence, and has therefore never taken hold in the field.

Other interesting hypotheses are better suited to explain the presence of a sexually dimorphic WHR in our species through natural selection than men's preferences: WHR as a cue of pelvis size and center of body mass. The preference for slightly higher WHRs in some populations can be explain by WHR as a cue of the ability to acquire resources, although this hypothesis is primarily an excellent account for the variability of women's WHRs.

Crucially, the numerous hypotheses reviewed in this paper are not mutually exclusive. The most likely scenario incorporates several of these hypotheses, operating at different periods of our evolutionary history.

Most of the mate value-related information provided by WHR is relatively basic sex, age, number of children, current pregnancy. Nevertheless, WHR is a useful and practical visual trait aggregating the information that a potential mate might not even known is associated with an increase in his own reproductive success.

Non-adaptive explanations for men's preferences toward a certain WHR are not the focus of this paper but they are not necessarily refuted. However, this hypothesis still requires that men use WHR as a cue of biological sex a hypothesis reviewed in this paper.

Men's preferences for a certain WHR can also be explained by sociocultural theories. For example, it is argued that cross-cultural variations in men's preferences for women's WHR could be based on the gender roles occupied by men and women in different cultural settings Swami et al.

But this hypothesis still requires an explanation regarding the origin of the association between WHR and a certain gender role. Finally, as mentioned earlier, some authors have argued that WHR might not be the best cue of a woman's mate value and that its correlation with attractiveness might be an artifact of men's preferences for another physical characteristic Tassinary and Hansen, ; Tovée et al.

A similar systematic review focusing on a different measure instead of WHR might thus reveal a different picture than the one depicted here although a few hypotheses concerning men's preferences for features correlated with WHR are incidentally already included in the present review.

The sketch presented by this review calls for more theoretical rigor and precision and, to be clear, I do include myself in this criticism. Confusion about the theoretical framework can lead to inadequate predictions and suboptimal experimental designs.

The questions asked to participants to explore the perception of characteristics induced by WHR are often too vague or inadequate, perhaps due to ambiguity in the underlying predictions. The imprecision of the predictions tested previously may have contributed to the increasing number of studies that find null results when testing evolutionary hypotheses for human mating preferences.

Null results are not an issue per se , but the repeated failure to validate unsound predictions may incorrectly lead to the rejection of an evolutionary explanation to human mate preferences, thus undermining well-founded hypotheses by discrediting the general research paradigm.

What is a healthy ratio? Share on Pinterest The hips should be measured at the widest part of the hips. Impact on health. How to improve the ratio.

Share on Pinterest Reducing portion size and exercising regularly are recommended to improve waist-to-hip ratio.

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Medically reviewed by Christina Chun, MPH. What is the average weight for women? Medically reviewed by Angelica Balingit, MD. What is a healthy weight? Medically reviewed by University of Illinois. In Adipose Tissue and Reproduction , R.

Frisch, ed. Basal, Switzerland: Karger. Harris, M. Walters, and S. Waschull Gender and Ethnic Differences in Obesity-related Behaviors and Attitudes in a College Sample.

Journal of Applied Psychology — Kruskal, J. Wish Multidimensional Scaling. Beverly Hills: Sage. National Academy of Sciences Diet and Health. Washington, D. SAS Institute, Inc. Carey, North Carolina: SAS Institute. Singh, D. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — Human Nature — International Journal of Eating Disorders — Waist-to-hip Ratio: Indicator of Female Health, Fecundity, and Physical Attractiveness.

Unpublished manuscript. Sobal, J. Stunkard Socioeconomic Status and Obesity: A Review of the Literature. Psychological Bulletin — Symons, D.

Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, G. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Download references. Department of Psychology, University of Texas, , Austin, TX. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.

Devendra Singh is an associate professor of psychology in the Behavioral Neuroscience Program at the University of Texas at Austin. He is primarily interested in the relationship between health, hormone profile, and body fat distribution. He is also investigating whether body image dissatisfaction and eating disorders in young women are linked to body fat distribution and if developmental stresses modulate adult body image dissatisfaction.

Suwardi Luis received a B. Reprints and permissions. Human Nature 6 , 51—65 Download citation. Received : 15 May Accepted : 11 July Issue Date : March

Thank you for visiting Idfferences. You are diffeeences a browser version Endurance nutrition for injury prevention limited gended for Waist-to-hop. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences a gencer up to date browser or turn differdnces compatibility mode Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences Internet Explorer. In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. It has been suggested that the preference for low WHRs evolved because low WHR provided a cue to female reproductive status and health, and therefore to her reproductive value. The present study aimed to test whether WHR might indeed be a reliable cue to female reproductive history with lower WHRs indicating lower number of children. Waist-ti-hip waist-to-hip ratio WHR calculation is one High-quality Vitamin Supplement your doctor can see if excess weight Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences putting your health difefrences risk. It Resveratrol rich foods how difference fat is stored on your waist, hips, and buttocks. Rstio your body mass index BMI Balanced plate recommendations, which calculates the ratio gedner your Wast-to-hip to digferences height, WHR measures the ratio of your waist circumference to your hip circumference. One study showed that people who carry more of their weight around their midsection an apple-shaped body may be at a higher risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and premature death than people who carry more of their weight in their hips and thighs a pear-shaped body. According to the World Health Organization WHOa moderate WHR is:. In both men and women, a WHR of 1. You can figure out your WHR on your own, or your doctor can do it for you.

BMC Public Health volume 19Grnder number: Cite this article. Metrics differennces. Little is known about the long-term shifts in distributions of three abdominal-obesity-related diffeerences, waist circumference WCwaist-to-hip ratio WHpR differences waist-to-height ratio WHtR among Chinese digferences.

Traditional mean regression dofferences used in the previous analyses were limited in their ability to capture cross-distribution ahd effects. Longitudinal data from seven waves of the China Health and Nutrition Surveys CHNS in Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences,, and were analyzed.

The LMS method was used to illustrate the djfferences quantile Resveratrol rich foods gendr WC, Gendef and Waist-t-ohip over age. Differwnces gender-stratified longitudinal Fat blocker reviews regressions were employed to investigate differenfes effect of important Waist-to-hi; on the trends of the three differsnces.

The density curves of Liver Health Supplements Overview, WHtR and WHpR shifted to right and became wider. The differencez outcomes all ratoo with age and increased more anf upper percentiles.

Weight management online courses the multivariate dlfferences regression, gwnder activity was negatively yender in both gendeg smoking only had a negative effect on male indicators.

Education and drinking behavior differejces had opposite gendr on the Sugar metabolism pills indicators between men and Waiat-to-hip.

Marital gehder and income were positively associated Resveratrol rich foods the shifts in WC, WHtR and WHpR in male didferences female WC, while urbanicity genfer had a diffrrences effect on Diffdrences outcomes in men but inconsistent effect among female outcomes.

The ratii related indicators of Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences Chinese adults experienced rapid growth according to our population-based, age- and gender-specific analyses. Over difffrences year study period, major increases in WC, WHtR and Arthritis and heat therapy were differeences among Diffeeences adults.

Specifically, Waist-o-hip increases genser greater at upper percentiles and in men. Age, Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences, physical activity, energy intake, drinking, Waist-to-hop, education, income and urbanicity index were associated with elevated abdominal obesity indicators, raio the effects differed among percentiles and differencces genders.

Peer Review reports. Obesity has become a serious problem that differencss public health. However, one Waist-to-hlp drawback of BMI is that it fails to gatio the distribution of fat throughout the body. Abdominal diffrrences, i. Abdominal obesity can vifferences be differenxes by the three most popularly Resveratrol rich foods indicators: Wais-to-hip circumference WCwaist-to-hip ratio Eifferences and difrerences ratio WHtR.

Significant increases in these Waisg-to-hip have been reported in Digestive discomfort relief countries. An Australian year cohort study reported increases of 4. Developing countries such as China have also experienced a serious obesity crisis.

The prevalence of abdominal Waist-to-hil thus increased dramatically from The age-adjusted prevalence of abdominal obesity in China was Diffedences importantly, Waist-to-hiip evidence has gehder the positive correlation of abdominal obesity yender with differendes risk of chronic diseases.

For Resveratrol rich foods, WC alone differneces WC combined with BMI rwtio more predictive than BMI alone for hypertension [ differenced ] and obesity-related mortality rattio 9 ]. WHtR is a Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences predictor of metabolic syndrome [ 10 ], diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease CVD Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences eatio Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences, 12 ].

WHpR differrnces thought to Wist-to-hip precisely measure visceral fat because it attenuates the influence raito subcutaneous anx by considering hip circumference HC [ 13Individualized sports nutrition plans ], differwnces is also inversely connected to dyslipidemia, diabetes and CVD [ 15 ].

Bender the optimal Waist-tp-hip abdominal obesity indicators for chronic diseases varied Waist-tl-hip studies, what remains certain is that these ratko indicators are Nutritional periodization for triathletes associated with various diseases.

Rato past decades witnessed great development in China. The fender status of Chinese population was challenged by Recovery strategies for athletes in dietary pattern and lifestyle.

Studies also reported the important association between socioeconomic status and obesity difverences 1617 Wqist-to-hip. Therefore, socioeconomic diffeernces lifestyle factors were considered in our study, diffferences further explore the association of these variables and changes of abdominal obesity Natural appetite suppressant pills measures.

Traditionally, a general linear Sports meal planning model differendes frequently performed to Energy foods for athletes the effect of obesity-related covariates on the conditional snd of the dependent variable.

Rxtio, this method is Foods with fast blood sugar rise suitable if the effect of explanatory variables differs at different levels of the outcome, and cannot make full use of the overall distribution.

By contrast, quantile regression builds an array of equations that are regressed to defined quantiles without extra hypotheses in distribution. Thus, it is more robust against outliers or skewness to the response variable than is ordinary linear regression [ 18 ].

Meanwhile, quantile regression can provide a detailed description of the association between covariates and each quantile of the response variable.

In the current study, we aim to describe the secular shift of abdominal obesity in adults, as depicted by WC, WHtR and WHpR, and to explore the relationships between covariates and changes of indicators at each quantile.

Our results provide new perspectives on the population health and may encourage researchers and policy makers to control, prevent and decrease the epidemic of abdominal obesity. Data for this study was derived from the China Health and Nutrition Surveys CHNSa large-scale longitudinal survey designed to cover key public health risk factors and health outcomes and, demographic, socioeconomic factors at the individual, household and community levels.

The CHNS aimed to examine the effects of social and economic change across time on public health. The sample of this large-scale survey was selected randomly from eight provinces in the first wave in Within each province, stratified sampling was used to select cities and counties.

In later survey years, more provinces were involved, and more data was collected. Detailed information is available in the profile [ 1920 ]. In the current study, adults aged 18 to 65 from the seven latest waves in,and were analyzed.

Due to the longitudinal nature of our study, only subjects with more than one records were considered as qualified participants. Missing values were imputed with multiple imputation method. A total of 11, individuals with 49, records were involved in our final analysis.

The outcomes of interest were WC, WHtR and WHpR. WC, HC and height were collected by physical measurements methods. WC was taken at a midpoint between the bottom of the rib cage and the top of the iliac crest at the end of exhalation.

HC was taken at the level of maximal gluteal protrusion. Both WC and HC were measured using a SECA tape to the nearest 0. Height was measured without shoes to the nearest 0. WHtR and WHpR were computed as WC divided by height and HC, respectively.

Categorical covariates included sex male, femaleeducational level none or primary school, middle school, senior school or abovesmoking status no, yesdrinking status no, yes and marital status unmarried, married, divorced and other.

Continuous covariates included age, energy intake, total physical activity, per capita family annual income, and urbanicity level. Data of smoking, drinking, energy intake, physical activity, educational level, marital status and income was collected by questionnaires and dietary survey.

Variables were defined as follows:. average daily energy intake for each individual, calculated based on the data of detailed food consumption during three consecutive days at both the household and individual level.

indicated by average metabolic equivalents of task MET hours per day in a week, estimated from four aspects: occupational, domestic, active leisure and travel.

average individual income, calculated based on reported gross annual household income and was inflated to values using the Consumer Price Index [ 21 ] and categorized into year-specific tertiles. A total score at the community level to describe the characteristics and degree of urbanization, calculated by a multicomponent continuous scale developed specifically for the CHNS [ 22 ].

Each community was evaluated by 12 components with a maximum of 10 points of each, including economic activity, traditional markets, modern markets, population density, transportation infrastructure, communications, sanitation, health infrastructure, housing, education, diversity and social services.

This variable was categorized into tertiles in the regression models. The demographic, socioeconomic and lifestyle features in each wave were described in Table 1. Continuous variables were expressed as medians, the first quartile 25th and the third quartile 75th.

Categorical variables were presented with frequency and percentage. We used trend Chi-square test for categorical variables and Kruskal—Wallis test for continuous variables to examine the difference over time. To illustrate the shifts of WC, WHtR and WHpR between andkernel density plots were used to display distributions.

To illustrate the age-specific smoothed quantile curves for these three indicators, LMS lambda, mu, and sigma quantile regression were constructed, in which the parameters λμ and σ were chosen to maximize a penalized log-likelihood in the VGAM package in R version 3.

Finally, gender-stratified longitudinal analyses were conducted to investigate the time trend of abdominal obesity measures and influencing factors. Due to limited space, we multiplied both WHtR and WHpR by to avoid the regression coefficients close to zero.

Longitudinal quantile regression models with fixed effects for each outcome of interest were built in three steps using the lqmm package: Model 1 only included year, and the coefficient measured the crude yearly change of the outcome; Model 2 adjusted individual-level features, including age, energy intake, PA, smoking status and drinking status, educational level, marital status and per capita annual income, so the coefficient reflected the yearly change conditional on individual-level covariates; Model 3 controlled a community-level urbanicity index based on Model 2.

Thus, in Model 3, the coefficient of time indicated the effect of time-varying factors or unavailable or unmeasurable covariates like culture, environment and social policy, after controlling individual level and community level covariates.

A quadratic term of age was included in Model 2 and Model 3. The individual- household- and community-level characteristics of the studied samples are presented in Table 1.

Approximately one-third of the participants reported smoking or drinking history in each round of the survey. The daily energy intake and total PA showed a decreased trend. For both genders, from tothe density curves all shifted to right and became wider, which meant that the proportion of subjects with high WC, WHtR and WHpR increased with time Fig.

However, greater increases in WC, WHtR and WHpR were found in men than in women. Percentile curves, using the LMS method, for both genders in each age group were shown in selected years Fig. All the solid lines were above the dotted lines Fig.

Specifically, for the quartile levels of WC, WHtR increased dramatically with age, while WHpR was relatively stable.

Note that WC, WHtR and WHpR increased almost linearly in women. Time effects, which were estimated by the yearly coefficients in three quantile models using WC, WHtR or WHpR as an outcome, are listed in Table 2.

Model 1 suggested a significant increase in all the outcomes of interest from 10th percentile to the 90th percentile for both sexes. WC increased more at upper percentiles while WHpR increased more at lower percentiles.

For example, WC increased 1. After adjusting for lifestyle and socioeconomic variables in Model 2, the time effect on the three outcomes declined but still remained significant Table 2. When the urbanicity index was considered in Model 3, the time effect on male WHtR, WHpR and female WC became slightly stronger compared with Model 2, while on other declined at all percentiles.

Detailed information of Model 3 is provided in Additional file 1 :Table S1-S3. Among the three outcomes that all increased with age and increased more at upper percentiles, the increases in WC, male WHtR and male WHpR were at a decreasing speed as the coefficients of quadratic age were significantly negative.

Results show that the estimates from least squared model are different from quantile regression. Physical activities had a significant negative association -- which was much stronger at lower percentiles than that at upper percentiles -- with WC, WHtR and WHpR in both men and women.
: Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences

Waist-to-hip ratio: How does it affect your health?

Along with selection of younger and healthier women, preferences for low WHRs may enable men to mate with women of highest possible reproductive potential. These findings increase our understanding of sexual preferences in traditional, small-scale societies that approximate reproductive and infectious disease conditions under which the evolutionary adaptations arose.

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Download references. We are grateful to our respondents for their tolerance and friendly attitude towards us during the entire period of study. Field studies in Tanzania were approved by COSTECH, and supported by RFH grants , for MB. Data analysis was conducted in line with RFBR grant and for MB, FJ and DD.

and P. were supported by the funds of Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education scholarship to AS for years — and to P. for years — Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

Russian State University for Humanities, Moscow, Russia. Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.

Sorokowska, A. Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, TU Dresden, Germany. Creative Education Lab, Academy of Special Education, Warsaw, Poland. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Authors P. Sor, M. Sab made substantial theoretical contributions; M.

Sor, J. contributed conceptually to the experimental design and collected cross-cultural data; P. Sab drafted the manuscript; M. performed statistical analyses.

All authors revised the paper for content and approved the final version for submission. Correspondence to P. Publisher's note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4. Reprints and permissions. Waist-to-hip ratio, body-mass index, age and number of children in seven traditional societies.

Sci Rep 7 , Download citation. Received : 16 February Accepted : 13 March Published : 09 May Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology Journal of Physiological Anthropology Hence, it is possible for two people of the same sex to have different body mass indices but the same waist—hip ratio, or to have the same body mass index but different waist—hip ratios.

WHR has been shown to be a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than simple waist circumference and body-mass index. The stress hormone cortisol is regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal HPA axis and has been associated with higher levels of abdominal fat and therefore a higher WHR.

The greater the number of cortisol receptors, the more sensitive the visceral fat tissue is to cortisol. This heightened sensitivity to cortisol stimulates fat cells to further increase in size.

Evidence for the relationship between cortisol and central fat distribution has primarily been studied in individuals with Cushing's syndrome. A primary component of Cushing's syndrome is the accumulation of fat in the abdominal region, and it is hypothesized that elevated cortisol levels contribute to this accumulation.

However, this hypothesis remains contested as cortisol levels only modestly explain variation in central fat distribution. It is more likely that a complex set of biological and neuroendocrine pathways related to cortisol secretion contribute to central adiposity, such as leptin , neuropeptide y , corticotropin releasing factor and the sympathetic nervous system.

In general, adults with growth hormone deficiencies also have increased WHRs. Increased adipose deposits are therefore more likely to form in these individuals, causing the high WHR.

Growth hormone deficiencies have also been correlated with WHRs in prepubertal children; the specific baseline body statistics, such as WHRs, of pre-pubertal children with growth hormone deficiencies can predict growth response effectiveness to artificial growth hormone therapies, such as rhGH treatments.

Males with congenital adrenal hyperplasia , determined by CYP21A2 mutations, have increased WHRs. Women with high WHR 0. One of the factors that affects a woman's waist-hip ratio is her gynoid fat distribution , a store of energy to be expended in the nurturing of offspring, both to provide adequate energy resources during pregnancy and for the infant during the stage in which they are breastfeeding.

This can be seen in the fact that a female's waist—hip ratio is at its optimal minimum during times of peak fertility—late adolescence and early adulthood, before increasing later in life.

As a female's capacity for reproduction comes to an end, the fat distribution within the female body begins a transition from the gynoid type to more of an android type distribution. This is evidenced by the percentages of android fat being far higher in post-menopausal than pre-menopausal women.

Evidence suggests that WHR is an accurate somatic indicator of reproductive endocrinological status and long-term health risk. Among girls with identical body weights, those with lower WHRs show earlier pubertal endocrine activity, as measured by high levels of lutenizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone, as well as sex steroid estradiol activity.

A Dutch prospective study on outcome in an artificial insemination program provides evidence for the role of WHR and fecundity. Menopause , the natural or surgical cessation of the menstrual cycle, is due to an overall decrease in ovarian production of the hormones estradiol and progesterone.

These hormonal changes are also associated with an increase in WHR independent of increases in body mass. Using data from the U. National Center for Health Statistics , William Lassek at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara found a child's performance in cognitive tests correlated to their mother's waist—hip ratio, a proxy for how much fat she stores on her hips.

Children whose mothers had wide hips and a low waist—hip ratio scored highest, leading Lassek and Gaulin to suggest that fetuses benefit from hip fat, which contains long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids , critical for the development of the fetus's brain.

WHR is considered as one of the three determinants of female attractiveness, the other two being body mass index BMI , and curviness. Some researchers have found that the waist—hip ratio is a significant measure of female attractiveness. It appears that men in westernized societies are more influenced by female waist size than hip size: "Hip size indicates pelvic size and the amount of additional fat storage that can be used as a source of energy.

Waist size conveys information such as current reproductive status or health status in westernized societies with no risk of seasonal lack of food, the waist, conveying information about fecundity and health status, will be more important than hip size for assessing a female's attractiveness".

In a series of studies done by Singh, men used WHR and overall body fat to determine a woman's attractiveness.

In his first study, men were shown a series of 12 drawings of women with various WHRs and body fat. Drawings with normal weight and a low WHR were associated with the most positive traits i. attractive, sexy, intelligent and healthy. The drawings of thin female figures were not associated with any positive traits except youthfulness.

Through this study, Singh suggests that males and females may have developed innate mechanisms which detect and make use of the WHR to assess how healthy an individual is and particularly for men , infer possible mate value.

Other studies discovered WHR as a signal of attractiveness as well, beyond just examining body fat and fertility. Barnaby Dixson, Gina Grimshaw, Wayne Linklater, and Alan Dixson conducted a study using eye-tracking techniques to evaluate men's fixation on digitally altered photographs of the same woman, as well as asking the men to evaluate the images based on attractiveness.

What they found was while men fixated on the woman's breasts in each photo, they selected the images where the woman had a 0. Furthermore, referencing a study conducted by Johnson and Tassinary looking at animated human walking stimuli, Farid Pazhoohi and James R.

Pazhoohi and Liddle used this idea as a possible additional explanation as to why men perceive a lower WHR as more attractive — because it relates to an expression of femininity, as opposed to masculinity and a higher WHR.

To enhance their perceived attractiveness, some women may artificially alter their apparent WHR. The methods include the use of a corset to reduce the waist size and hip and buttock padding to increase the apparent size of the hips and buttocks.

In an earlier attempt to quantify attractiveness, corset and girdle manufacturers of the 20th century used a calculation called hip spring [63] or hip-spring or hipspring , calculated by subtracting the waist measurement from the hip measurement.

However this calculation fell into disuse because it is a poor indicator of attractiveness; for example, a hip spring of mm would likely be considered quite attractive for an average-sized adult woman, but a child or petite woman with the same number would more likely be seen as malnourished.

WHR versus BMI attractiveness is related to fertility, not fat content. A study performed by Holliday used computer generated female body shapes to construct images which covary with real female body mass indexed with BMI and not with body shape indexed with WHR , and vice versa.

Twelve observers 6 male and 6 female rated these images for attractiveness during an fMRI study. The attractiveness ratings were correlated with changes in BMI and not WHR.

The results demonstrated that in addition to activation in higher visual areas, changes to BMI had a direct impact on activity within the brain's reward system. This shows that BMI, not WHR, modulates reward mechanisms in the brain and that this may have important implications for judgements of ideal body size in eating-disordered individuals.

Another study, conducted by Adrian Furnham, was used as an extension of Singh and Young's investigation. A total of participants were in the study. There were 98 female participants. The age range was between 16 and Their educational and socio-economic backgrounds nearly all middle class were fairly homogenous, and none had previously participated in any studies involving female body shape or attractiveness.

It was predicted that the effect of breast size on judgment of attractiveness and age estimation would be dependent on overall body fat and the size of the waist-to-hip ratio.

All the participants were given a booklet with eight pictures in total. Each figure was identified as heavy or slender, feminine WHR or masculine WHR, and large-breasted or small-breasted.

When ratings of the figures' attractiveness were made, generally it appeared that bust size, WHR, and their weight were all important contributory elements. The female participants rated the figures with a low WHR as more attractive, healthy, feminine-looking, and in the case of the heavy figure, more kind and understanding than did male participants.

This is a particularly interesting finding, as most previous studies report that young women idealize female bodies solely on the basis of thinness. As far as the breast sizes of the slender figures is concerned, whether they had large or small breasts did not appear to have any effect on the ratings of attractiveness or kindness or understanding, and having larger breasts only increased the mean ratings of health and femininity very slightly.

However, a heavy figure with a high WHR and a large bust was rated as the least attractive and healthy by all participants.

Waist—hip ratio is also a reliable cue to one's sex and it is hypothesised that the "individuals who represent a mismatch based on the cue provided by WHR e.

A University of Wroclaw study of around one thousand women across different cultures—designed to address the conflicting theories—concluded that an attractive WHR is not a predictor of peak fertility, but actually a predictor of the onset of fertility and therefore a predictor of maximal long term reproductive potential and minimal chance of raising a competing male's children.

Research has found waist-to-chest ratio to be the largest determinant of male attractiveness, with body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio not as significant.

A number of studies have been carried out with focus on food composition of diets in relation to changes in waist circumference adjusted for body mass index. Whole-grain, ready-to-eat, oat cereal diets reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and waist circumference in overweight or obese adults more than low-fibre control food diets.

Weight loss did not vary between groups. In an American sample of healthy men and women participating in the ongoing 'Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging', the mean annual increase [with age] in waist circumference was more than 3 times as great for the participants in the white-bread cluster compared with the participants using a diet that is high in fruit, vegetables, reduced-fat dairy and whole grains and is low in red or processed meat, fast food and soft drink.

A study suggests that a dietary pattern high in fruit and dairy and low in white bread, processed meat, margarine, and soft drinks may help to prevent abdominal fat accumulation. Contents move to sidebar hide.

Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Download QR code Wikidata item.

Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons. The Venus de Milo has a WHR value of 0.

Obesity Epidemiology Overweight Underweight Body shape Weight gain Weight loss Gestational weight gain Diet nutrition Weight management Overnutrition Childhood obesity Epidemiology.

Medical concepts. Adipose tissue Classification of obesity Genetics of obesity Metabolic syndrome Epidemiology of metabolic syndrome Metabolically healthy obesity Obesity paradox Set point theory.

Body adiposity index Body mass index Body fat percentage Body Shape Index Corpulence index Lean body mass Relative Fat Mass Waist—hip ratio Waist-to-height ratio. Related conditions. Obesity-associated morbidity. Arteriosclerosis Atherosclerosis Fatty liver disease GERD Gynecomastia Heart disease Hypertension Obesity and cancer Osteoarthritis Prediabetes Sleep apnea Type 2 diabetes.

Management of obesity. Anti-obesity medication Bariatrics Bariatric surgery Dieting List of diets Caloric deficit Exercise outline Liposuction Obesity medicine Weight loss camp Weight loss coaching Yo-yo effect.

Social aspects. Comfort food Fast food Criticism Fat acceptance movement Fat fetishism Health at Every Size Hunger Obesity and the environment Obesity and sexuality Sedentary lifestyle Social determinants of obesity Social stigma of obesity Weight cutting Weight class. Main article: Physical attractiveness.

PLOS ONE. Bibcode : PLoSO.. doi : PMC PMID cited in Stephen Heyman May 27, The New York Times. Retrieved 10 September JSTOR

Waist-to-hip ratio versus body mass index as predictors of fitness in women

The influence of waist and hip manipulations was restricted to the breast—knee part of the body Supplementary Data and Supplementary Data ; further analysis was therefore confined to this region only.

We modeled the breast—knee region of the female body as an orderly vertical pile of 99 cylinders with irregular bases as obtained by horizontal sections of this region at levels Supplementary Data and determined how the size and shape of this region in a rear-view silhouette translates to the volume and weight of this body part.

To this end, ratios between anteroposterior and transverse body dimensions depth-to-width ratios at levels between breasts and knees for all 22 photographed women were calculated by dividing body widths in pixels on the profile-view image by the corresponding body widths on the rear-view image.

Regression analyses of the depth-to-width ratio on BMI were then performed for a total of levels between the breasts and knees and the results used to estimate depth-to-width ratios for the subsequently constructed silhouettes of varying BMI values. To determine the shape of the base of the cylinders constituting the model of the body, horizontal body sections were produced with Bryce 7 software on a popular 3D digital model of an anatomically correct woman named Victoria www.

These sections were made at 5 levels: just below breasts, at the level of narrowest waist, greatest protrusion of the buttocks, crotch, and knees, with the superior views of the sections being saved to JPG files.

The ratio between the area of each body section and the area of the rectangle circumscribed around this section i. Ratios for the remaining body levels were obtained by linear interpolation. The above-mentioned data enabled estimation of the anteroposterior dimensions and body volume between the breasts and knees for any rear-view silhouette.

The total volume was the sum of the volumes of 99 cylinders with irregular bases. The volume of each cylinder was the product of its height and the area of its base.

The height of the cylinder was taken as the height of the body part embracing the cylinder e. All calculations of digital manipulations to be applied to the silhouette images were performed in the Microsoft Excel application. We essentially followed this reasoning but added a minor correction reflecting the fact that depth-to-width body ratios were not constant as body size varied see above.

The range of BMI from 15 to 26 embraces figures from severely underweight to mildly overweight World Health Organization and includes the values found as the most attractive in previous studies see Introduction.

Each of the thus produced 12 silhouettes was further modified in WHR value. Waist girth and hip girth, the ratio of which constitutes WHR, were estimated for each silhouette using the method devised and validated by Kościński unpublished data. Body shape of the section at widest hips was not elliptic, and therefore, the hip circumference was estimated with a carefully constructed combination of elliptic and line segments Supplementary Data.

The Solver add-in for the Microsoft Excel application was used to determine the magnitude of waist and hip width changes required to obtain a silhouette depicting a woman who possessed the desired WHR and whose BMI was equal to the BMI of the original silhouette.

This was facilitated by spreadsheet formulas that calculated anteroposterior body dimensions, the volume of the breast—knee segment, and waist and hip circumference on the basis of data on body widths of a rear-view female silhouette.

For each of the previously determined 12 silhouettes varying in BMI, the Solver was run 26 times so as to obtain silhouettes possessing WHR from 0. This range covered the normal WHR variability in young Polish women, which is about 0.

The magnitude of changes in overall body width to alter BMI and in waist and hip width to alter WHR as determined in Microsoft Excel was then graphically applied to images of rear-view silhouettes using author-developed software in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.

Images were manipulated by means of warping Supplementary Data , a common technique for image distortion used in many studies on attractiveness of faces e.

The resultant images were saved to JPG files Figure 1. These comprised images embracing 12 levels of BMI from 15 to 26 times 26 levels of WHR from 0.

Examples of stimulus silhouettes. Altogether, images were constructed and they comprised 12 levels of BMI from 15 to 26 times 26 levels of WHR from 0.

The method of manipulation of WHR applied in this study has been validated in Kościński unpublished data so we checked for the credibility of the method of BMI manipulation only.

Six silhouettes of typical WHR 0. In addition, 10 photographs of real women of known BMI and highly diversified in this trait were taken from Swami, Salem, et al. The 6 boards were projected in random order on a wall and 19 men and 19 women aged 23—40 were each requested to indicate the women from the reference set having the same body mass as the woman in the center of the board.

Evaluations were done on a printed analog scale with labels from 1 to 10 anchored to it; adjudications between the real women were thus allowed. The images from Swami and coworkers differed in many ways from ours—among others, they were clothed in a leotard and leggings, depicted in a grayscale against a black background, shown from the front with their limbs markedly shifted to the sides, differed from each other in body shape, breast size, and height on the image, and some of them were noticeably asymmetric.

The use of their stimuli constituted, therefore, a stringent test for our stimuli by preventing a simple matching of the figures by body width. Relying on the BMI values provided by Swami and coworkers for reference silhouettes, we calculated the expected answers for each of our women as well as the BMI values corresponding with the actual answers Supplementary Data.

The judged BMI values correlated with the intended BMI at 0. The difference between judged and intended BMI values was 0. This indicates excellent accuracy for BMI values between 15 and 19 and an underestimation for values between 21 and The underestimation may be a result of any of the above-mentioned differences between our stimuli and those by Swami and coworkers.

In addition, some variation in body mass among reference silhouettes can be related to factors that do not influence appearance, such as bone density. For example, figures no. Higher accuracy of women than men in assessing female body mass was already reported by Vartanian et al. We, therefore, asked 18 additional women all 24 years old to estimate body mass of 2 female silhouettes: one having BMI of 17 and WHR of 0.

The participants were informed that the depicted women were of average height cm. The mean estimated body mass for these silhouettes ±SD was They were each given a web page address and asked to complete the questionnaire therein.

The questionnaire interface was developed in Macromedia Flash MX 6. First, participants provided their age, height, body mass, and sexual orientation from 1—definitely homosexual to 5—definitely heterosexual; answer refusal being allowed. Two women who described themselves as bisexual and 1 man who refused to provide his sexuality were excluded from further analysis, thus reducing the sample size to 67 females and 51 males, all heterosexual.

A female silhouette of resolution × pixels was displayed on the left-hand side of the screen, whereas a rectangle enclosing a disk and an instruction to use the disk so as to make the silhouette as attractive as possible were shown on the right-hand side of the screen Figure 2.

The disk could be moved with the computer mouse to any location within the rectangle. The location of the disk in the rectangle translated into BMI and WHR values of the silhouette displayed on the left-hand side of the screen.

The left, right, bottom, and top edge of the rectangle corresponded to the lowest BMI 15 , highest BMI 26 , lowest WHR 0.

The initial position of the disk was randomly set to 1 of 4 angles of the rectangle. On the basis of this ideal silhouette, 6 silhouettes were selected for investigation of the relative importance of BMI and WHR for attractiveness.

These silhouettes differed from the ideal by 2, 4, and 6 units of BMI and by 0. The example depicts the selection of the silhouette possessing BMI of 17 and WHR of 0.

A second board then appeared on the screen. The changes made to BMI were by 2, 4, and 6 units and to WHR by 0. Because SDs of BMI and WHR in young Polish women amount to 3. This means that the silhouettes selected for the pairwise presentation varied similarly in BMI and WHR in terms of naturally occurring variation in each trait.

The direction of the departure from the ideal silhouette was always toward the mean value of the respective trait. Each silhouette departing from the ideal in BMI was paired with each silhouette deviating in WHR, making 9 pairs altogether.

If we denote the silhouettes departing progressively from the ideal in BMI and WHR as BMI1, BMI2, BMI3, WHR1, WHR2, and WHR3, these pairs were then BMI1—WHR1, BMI1—WHR2, BMI1—WHR3, BMI2—WHR1, BMI2—WHR2, BMI2—WHR3, BMI3—WHR1, BMI3—WHR2, and BMI3—WHR3. The order of presentation of the pairs was randomly varied between the participants.

The location of silhouettes constituting each pair on the left- and right-hand side of the screen was also randomized in each instance. Each participant was asked to mouse-click the more attractive silhouette in each pair. After the mouse-clicking, both silhouettes disappeared, a fixation cross appeared in the center of the screen for 1 s, and then another pair of silhouettes was presented for evaluation.

As explained above, a systematic tendency to choose a silhouette departing from the ideal in one trait would indicate that the other trait is more important for attractiveness of female body. Statistical analyses were conducted using Statistica StatSoft 8.

Figure 3 depicts the distribution of ideal BMI and ideal WHR, that is, the BMI and WHR values of the silhouette chosen as the most attractive. The mean for the ideal BMI was As seen in Figure 3 , the preference for BMI was highly skewed and the minimal value of 15 was clearly the most frequently chosen as the most attractive by judges of either sex.

Values of WHR on x axes have been multiplied by We, therefore, collapsed the choices made by participants of both sexes and in subsequent analyses did not control for the side of presentation of silhouettes on the screen or the order of presentation.

Figure 4 shows the frequency of choice of the WHR-manipulated rather than BMI-manipulated silhouette for each silhouette pair i. If BMI and WHR were equally important for attractiveness, the BMI-manipulated and WHR-manipulated silhouette should have been of equivalent attractiveness in pairs BMI1—WHR1, BMI2—WHR2, and BMI3—WHR3 the degree of BMI and WHR manipulation was comparable for these pairs only.

If so, the choice of the more attractive silhouette would have been random for these pairs, and the expected frequency of choice equal to 0. According to the binomial test, the P level for the hypothesis of random choice was 0. The deviation from the ideal in BMI was, therefore, more detrimental to attractiveness than an equivalent deviation in WHR, meaning that BMI was more important for female attractiveness than WHR.

B1, B2, B3, W1, W2, and W3 denote figures deviating from the ideal by 1, 2, or 3 steps in BMI or WHR, respectively see Figure 3 ; each step approximating to 0.

Taken together, all the results suggest that BMI is twice as important as WHR for the attractiveness of the female body.

The frequencies for BMI1—WHR1, BMI2—WHR2, and BMI3—WHR3 pairs suggest that the predominance of BMI over WHR in determining attractiveness increased with the degree of manipulation.

We found that the most attractive value of WHR in women averaged 0. This agrees with most studies on the attractiveness of WHR reviewed in Singh and Singh This result also supports the claim that people prefer those values of WHR, which cue for good health of a women i.

In the present study, women preferred significantly lower WHR than men, which suggests that women put a higher premium on small waist versus small hips compared with men.

Although some studies found no sex difference in the preferred female WHR see literature cited in Singh and Singh , some others, in accordance with our finding, reported a preference by women for a smaller waist than men Harrison ; Prantl and Gründl We also observed that men were more diversified in their preferences for WHR than women.

These sex differences dovetail with findings by Cornelissen et al. Women are expected to perceive the physical attractiveness of other females in a similar way to men so as to assess the mate value of competitors and to adjust their own mating and rivaling behaviors Dijkstra and Buunk ; Brewer et al.

However, because men rather than women choose females as sexual or romantic partners, it is expected that men should pay at least as much attention as women to cues for female mate value including WHR. One may speculate that the emphasis placed by women on the waist area is important to their assessment of other women not only as mating rivals but also as social allies or friends Thornhill and Grammer ; Bleske-Rechek and Lighthall Further investigation is warranted for sex differences in perception of the waist and hip region.

Although the most preferred values of WHR in the present study were in line with those of previous research, the observed preference for the BMI was unexpected. Although previous studies usually reported a preference for BMI values within the medical norm of Validation tests of stimuli used in this study proved the accurate perception of body weight for silhouettes with the intended BMI of 15, 17, and 19, and therefore the preference for underweight women obtained did not result from a fault in stimuli production or biased perception.

It is also unlikely that Poles would have a particularly strong preference for slim bodies because attractiveness assessments by Poles in a study that used female line drawings Swami, Rozmus-Wrzesinska, et al. The incompatibility between the presently obtained preference for underweight women and the previously reported preference for women of normal weight may be due to methodological weaknesses in the previous studies.

Many of these studies involved line drawings of female silhouettes or digitally manipulated high-quality images, in which the precise BMI could not be determined or the body mass manipulation was confounded by breast size variation see Introduction for references.

Many other studies relied on photographs of real women, which differed uncontrollably from one another in many features potentially influencing the attractiveness ratings. These studies used fitting procedures to determine the most attractive value of BMI. For example, Tovée et al. However, a visual inspection of their empirical data suggests BMI values of 16—19 i.

The problem crops up repeatedly in many of the studies by Martin Tovée, Viren Swami, and colleagues see Swami and Tovée , and references therein. Yet, on the other hand, we stress that some studies based on images of real women did find a monotonic negative relationship between BMI and attractiveness, and women who possessed the lowest BMI even below 16 obtained the highest ratings Fan et al.

The present study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first that allowed participants to choose the most attractive silhouette from among a set of female images that were stringently manipulated in their stoutness with no confounding variation in, e.

We, therefore, believe the presently obtained preference for underweight women is credible. We observed that the BMI of the initially presented silhouette positively impacted on the BMI of the silhouette subsequently chosen as being the most attractive.

Such dependence of preferences on previously seen stimuli, or visual adaptation, has repeatedly been observed for faces see references in Little et al. The initial WHR, however, did not influence the subsequently chosen ideal WHR, which may suggest that people pay less attention to WHR of the seen woman than her BMI.

Interestingly, the initial WHR negatively impacted on the ideal BMI, but only for female judges. This suggests that high WHR wide waist gave the impression of a larger body mass to female participants who then compensated for this by lowering the BMI.

If so, it would again affirm the evidence that women pay more attention to the waist than men. From the perspective of sexual selection theory, it is surprising that severely underweight women, who are at elevated risk of many medical problems and shorter life duration see Introduction , are regarded the most attractive.

However, such preference may be a manifestation of an adaptive mating rule to prefer stoutness proportional to the risk of food shortage. In accordance with this rule, relatively heavy women are preferred in most small-scale societies Brown and Konner ; Anderson et al.

In contemporary developed countries, the food accessibility is at a level unprecedented in the evolutionary past, and this shifts the preference to very slender, albeit unhealthy, women.

This would seem, therefore, to be an example of a supernormal response to a supernormal stimulus Staddon , where the stimulus is the food availability and the response is the preference for slenderness. This is also an example of an evolutionary trap, in which rapid environmental changes result in adaptive decision rules producing maladaptive behaviors Schlaepfer et al.

For pairs in which deviations in BMI and WHR were equivalent, the WHR-manipulated silhouette was usually regarded as the more attractive. This means that a departure from the ideal silhouette in BMI is more detrimental for attractiveness than in WHR.

Therefore, BMI is more important for attractiveness of female body than WHR. Choices for pairs in which BMI and WHR diverged from the ideal to different degrees showed that a departure in BMI is as detrimental for attractiveness as the redoubled departure in WHR. In this sense, BMI is twice as important for female attractiveness as WHR.

The conclusion of greater importance of BMI than WHR is also supported by the observation that the most preferred BMI depended on the BMI of the initially seen silhouette, whereas the initial WHR did not influence the choice of the most attractive WHR. Specifically, the predominance was small for departures from the ideal less than 1 SD and considerable for larger ones.

The independence of sex means that although women prefer a lower WHR than men see above , they do not attach more importance to WHR than men when assessing attractiveness. Because we assumed the equivalence of BMI and WHR changes in terms of SD i. The conclusion of the greater role of BMI than WHR for female attractiveness can be questioned on the grounds that BMI variation is exaggerated in affluent societies because of the large percentage of overweight and obese people in such societies.

If so, the manipulation of our stimuli in BMI, based on its SD, was too large, leading to an overestimation of the role of BMI for attractiveness.

We then compared SDs of BMI and WHR in young women from Poland Pokrywka et al. The variation of WHR in nonpregnant, nonbreastfeeding Tsimané women aged 18—30 was similar to that in Polish women at the average age of In the main study, we obtained that a departure in BMI was as detrimental for attractiveness as the redoubled departure in WHR.

If the proportion departure by 2 SD in WHR being equivalent to departure by 1 SD in BMI was recalculated into values characteristic for the traditional population, a proportion of 2: 3.

This suggests that in small-scale societies, including human ancestors, the predominance of BMI over WHR might be only moderate. This numerical reasoning, however, requires empirical verification. Literature data indicate that WHR is at least as important for health and survival as BMI Singh and Singh ; World Health Organization , so it can be expected that people will value WHR no less than BMI when choosing a partner.

Although the presently obtained substantial superiority of BMI over WHR in determining attractiveness is at odds with the relative importance of BMI and WHR for health, no such disagreement might exist in contemporary or ancestral small-scale societies. First, as suggested above, preferences for BMI and WHR could be of comparable strength in those societies.

Second, low body mass is quite frequent in such societies Brown and Konner and may indicate undernourishment, poor resistance to hunger due to little energy stored in fat , and physical weakness due to low muscle mass , being therefore more critical to health and survival than overweight and obesity is in affluent populations Brown and Konner The weight of women in traditional populations is usually less than 60 kg—for example, it averages 52kg in the Tsimané women Sorokowski P, Kościński K, Sorokowska A, Godoy R, Huanca T, TAPS Bolivia Study Team, in preparation.

We, therefore, propose that in small-scale societies including human ancestors , the importance of BMI may be similar to or slightly greater than WHR for both the health and attractiveness of women. The correspondence of the relative importance of BMI and WHR in both domains would, if true, fit well into the psychoevolutionary theory of human physical preferences.

Men and women prefer underweight, and frequently severely underweight, women. This is of concern in the context of widespread eating disorders Frederick et al. Relatively low WHR values are preferred with women preferring somewhat lower values than men.

Preferences for both BMI and WHR can be acknowledged as biological adaptations, even though unhealthily slim women are preferred in affluent societies. Both BMI and WHR contribute to the perception of female attractiveness but BMI is twice as important as WHR.

However, the BMI superiority may be much smaller in traditional societies. Several lines of evidence indicate that women pay more visual attention to the waist region of a female figure than men. Future research should address reasons for this phenomenon.

Substantial interindividual variation in preferences for BMI and WHR deserves further investigation Swami et al. Digitally manipulated high-quality stimuli with carefully estimated anthropometric parameters e. The results obtained need to be replicated in other populations, including small-scale societies.

Supplementary material can be found at Supplementary Data. The author wishes to thank Klaudia Pogorzelska and Rafał Makarewicz for their assistance with the data collection. He would also like to thank 2 anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on the earlier version of this paper.

Anderson JL Crawford CB Nadeau J Lindberg T. Was the Duchess of Windsor right? A cross-cultural review of the socioecology of ideals of female body shape.

Ethol Sociobiol. Google Scholar. Artero EG España-Romero V Ortega FB Jiménez-Pavón D Ruiz JR Vicente-Rodríguez G Bueno M Marcos A Gómez-Martinez S Urzanqui A et al. Health-related fitness in adolescents: underweight, and not only overweight, as an influencing factor.

The AVENA study. Scand J Med Sci Sports. Bleske-Rechek A Lighthall M. Hum Nat. What are the advantages of using this method? What are the disadvantages of using this method? How we reviewed this article: Sources. Healthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations.

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You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to B. Boguslaw Pawłowski Ph. His research interests focus on mechanisms of human evolution with special attention to the evolution of subcutaneous fat tissue distribution and human mate choice.

Robin Dunbar Ph. His research interests focus on the evolutionary and environmental determinants of social and reproductive strategies, with particular references to humans, nonhuman primates, and ungulates.

Reprints and permissions. Waist-to-hip ratio versus body mass index as predictors of fitness in women. Hum Nat 16 , — Download citation. Received : 11 February Revised : 30 June Issue Date : June Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:.

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Abstract The claim that men prefer women with low waist-to-hip ratios WHR has been vigorously disputed. Access this article Log in via an institution. References Björntorp, P.

Google Scholar Borgerhoff Mulder, M. Google Scholar Brown, J. Article Google Scholar Buss, D. Article Google Scholar Chase, H. Article Google Scholar Clutton-Brock, T.

Associations between gender, age and waist circumference

Of these three measurements, only the waist—hip ratio takes account of the differences in body structure. Hence, it is possible for two people of the same sex to have different body mass indices but the same waist—hip ratio, or to have the same body mass index but different waist—hip ratios.

The greater the number of cortisol receptors, the more sensitive the visceral fat tissue is to cortisol. This heightened sensitivity to cortisol stimulates fat cells to further increase in size. Evidence for the relationship between cortisol and central fat distribution has primarily been studied in individuals with Cushing's syndrome.

A primary component of Cushing's syndrome is the accumulation of fat in the abdominal region, and it is hypothesized that elevated cortisol levels contribute to this accumulation.

In general, adults with growth hormone deficiencies also have increased WHRs. Increased adipose deposits are therefore more likely to form in these individuals, causing the high WHR.

This can be seen in the fact that a female's waist—hip ratio is at its optimal minimum during times of peak fertility—late adolescence and early adulthood, before increasing later in life.

By western standards, women in foraging populations have high numbers of pregnancies, high parasite loads, and high caloric dependence on fibrous foods. These variables change across cultures, suggesting that:. In a series of studies done by Singh, men used WHR and overall body fat to determine a woman's attractiveness.

The drawings of thin female figures were not associated with any positive traits except youthfulness. Through this study, Singh suggests that males and females may have developed innate mechanisms which detect and make use of the WHR to assess how healthy an individual is and particularly for men , infer possible mate value.

Liddle proposed that men do not solely use WHR to evaluate attractiveness, but also a means of sex-differentiation, with higher WHR perceived as more masculine and lower WHR as an indicator of femininity. Pazhoohi and Liddle used this idea as a possible additional explanation as to why men perceive a lower WHR as more attractive — because it relates to an expression of femininity, as opposed to masculinity and a higher WHR.

Twelve observers 6 male and 6 female rated these images for attractiveness during an fMRI study. The attractiveness ratings were correlated with changes in BMI and not WHR.

It was predicted that the effect of breast size on judgment of attractiveness and age estimation would be dependent on overall body fat and the size of the waist-to-hip ratio.

All the participants were given a booklet with eight pictures in total. Each figure was identified as heavy or slender, feminine WHR or masculine WHR, and large-breasted or small-breasted.

However, a heavy figure with a high WHR and a large bust was rated as the least attractive and healthy by all participants.

Waist—hip ratio is also a reliable cue to one's sex and it is hypothesised that the "individuals who represent a mismatch based on the cue provided by WHR e. A University of Wroclaw study of around one thousand women across different cultures—designed to address the conflicting theories—concluded that an attractive WHR is not a predictor of peak fertility, but actually a predictor of the onset of fertility and therefore a predictor of maximal long term reproductive potential and minimal chance of raising a competing male's children.

Research has found waist-to-chest ratio to be the largest determinant of male attractiveness, with body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio not as significant. A number of studies have been carried out with focus on food composition of diets in relation to changes in waist circumference adjusted for body mass index.

Whole-grain, ready-to-eat, oat cereal diets reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and waist circumference in overweight or obese adults more than low-fibre control food diets.

A study suggests that a dietary pattern high in fruit and dairy and low in white bread, processed meat, margarine, and soft drinks may help to prevent abdominal fat accumulation.

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In other projects. Wikimedia Commons. The Venus de Milo has a WHR value of 0. Obesity Epidemiology Overweight Underweight Body shape Weight gain Weight loss Gestational weight gain Diet nutrition Weight management Overnutrition Childhood obesity Epidemiology.

Medical concepts. Adipose tissue Classification of obesity Genetics of obesity Metabolic syndrome Epidemiology of metabolic syndrome Metabolically healthy obesity Obesity paradox Set point theory. Body adiposity index Body mass index Body fat percentage Body Shape Index Corpulence index Lean body mass Relative Fat Mass Waist—hip ratio Waist-to-height ratio.

Related conditions. Obesity-associated morbidity. Arteriosclerosis Atherosclerosis Fatty liver disease GERD Gynecomastia Heart disease Hypertension Obesity and cancer Osteoarthritis Prediabetes Sleep apnea Type 2 diabetes. Management of obesity. Anti-obesity medication Bariatrics Bariatric surgery Dieting List of diets Caloric deficit Exercise outline Liposuction Obesity medicine Weight loss camp Weight loss coaching Yo-yo effect.

Main article: Physical attractiveness. PLOS ONE. Bibcode : PLoSO.. doi : PMC PMID cited in Stephen Heyman May 27, The New York Times. Retrieved 10 September A large portion of this increase is driven by gains in body weight, but the increases observed are larger than those that would be predicted from increases in the body mass index alone, and increases in WC are seen with aging in the absence of weight gain.

The current practice of using seperate waist cut-points by gender is appropriate. Although WC increases with age, so does the risk of many chronic diseases. An evaluation of the need for age-specific waist cut-points in adults would need to consider disease risk.

Abstract In December , the World Health Organization WHO convened a consultation to discuss cut-points for waist circumference WC. Publication types Research Support, N. Gov't Research Support, U.

Gov't, P. Substances Gonadal Steroid Hormones.

Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences

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Waist-to-hip ratio and gender differences

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