A Critical Test of the Waist-to-Hip Ratio Hypothesis of Women's Physical Attractiveness in Britain and Greece

Abstract

Body mass index (BMI) and body shape as measured by the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) have been reported to be the major cues to women's bodily attractiveness. The relative importance of each of these cues was examined cross-culturally in two distinct countries, Greece and Britain. Fifty Britons, 25 British-Greeks, and 25 participants in Greece were asked to rate a set of images of real women with known BMI and WHR. The results showed that, regardless of the cultural setting, BMI is the primary determinant of women's physical attractiveness, whereas WHR emerged as a significant predictor for the Greek groups but not the British group. This finding is discussed in terms of the different gender roles occupied by Britons and Greeks. The discussion critically evaluates evolutionary psychological and sociocultural explanations of preferences for body weight.

The Attractive Female Body Weight and Female Body Dissatisfaction in 26 Countries Across 10 World Regions: Results of the International Body Project I

“…Indeed, it was noticeable that in the present study, the mean preference across all 10 geographic regions when rural sites had been excluded was for Figure 3 in the CDFRS. Given that most of our research sites presented socioeconomically developed settings, our results would seem to corroborate the suggestion that the ideal in such societies is thin, and possibly underweight (e.g., Smith et al, 2007;Swami, Antonakopoulos, et al, 2006;Swami, Caprario, et al, 2006;Swami, Neto, et al, 2007;Swami & Tovée, 2005a).…”

Waist‐to‐Hip Ratio across Cultures: Trade‐Offs between Androgen‐ and Estrogen‐Dependent Traits

“…The importance men place on low WHR appears to vary with sex roles, with men in less sexually egalitarian societies, such as Greece (Swami et al 2006a), Japan (Swami 2006b), and Portugal (Furnham and Nordling 1998), placing a greater value on low WHR than do men in Britain or Denmark, where women are economically and socially more independent. Although there are different ways of interpreting these results, they are consistent with the argument that higher WHR is adaptive in societies where women must get resources through their direct productive work rather than through investing males and that male preferences may reflect this adaptive shift.…”

The Relationships between Symmetry and Attractiveness and Mating Relevant Decisions and Behavior: A Review

“…Some researchers suggest that an attractiveness assessment based on WHR is a product of changes in BMI such that BMI is a better predictor of female attractiveness than WHR [37,38]. However, recent research, using photographs of pre and post surgical patients, comparing the contributions of WHR and BMI to women's attractiveness assessments, reports that women with lower WHR are rated as more attractive regardless of changes in their BMI [39,40].…”