Sunday, November 11, 2007

Curvy women are cleverer too

And researchers believe this is why men find them more attractive. Yeah, I buy that:

IT was already known that men find curvy women more attractive and that they live longer. Now research suggests that women with an hourglass figure are brighter and have cleverer children, too.

The study found that women with large hips and small waists are more intelligent than those with either “apple-shaped” or linear bodies.

The paper, to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour this week, suggests that such women give birth to more intelligent children - possibly a result of higher levels of omega3 fatty acids on the hips.

The researchers believe that the results offer a new explanation for why many men find curvy women more alluring.

[...]

In the research, scientists at the Universities of Pittsburgh and California, Santa Barbara, used data from a study of 16,000 women and girls, which collected details of their body measurements and their scores in cognitive tests. They found that those women with a greater difference between the waist and hips scored significantly higher on the tests, as did their children.

Such women are not necessarily skinny. What is important is that their waist should be smaller than their hips, with the ideal ratio being between 0.6 and 0.7.
(via)