Waist-to-Hip Ratio, but Not  Body  Mass Index,  Is Associated  with Testosterone and Estradiol Concentrations in Young Women

Mondrágón-Ceballos, Ricardo; García-Granados, Mónica Dafne; Cerda-Molina, Ana Lilia; Chavira-Ramírez, Roberto; Hernández-López, Leonor

doi:10.1155/2015/654046

Cited by 24 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…We collected three physical features hypothesized to be linked to women's immediate fertility: the waist‐to‐hip ratio (the ratio between body circumference at the waist and the hips or WHR, Singh, ; Jasienska et al ., ; Singh & Randall, ; Lassek & Gaulin, ; Mondragón‐Ceballos et al ., ; Butovskaya et al ., ; but see Nenko & Jasienska, ), the fundamental frequency of the voice (F0, Harries et al ., ; Abitbol et al ., ; Feinberg, ; Evans et al ., ; Abend et al ., ) and the facial femininity (Farkas, ; Johnston & Franklin, ; Perrett et al ., ; Fink & Neave, ; Law Smith et al ., ; Little et al ., ; Pfluger et al ., ; Jones, ). The WHR was measured in the laboratory by the investigator.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cues of immediate fertility can be found in body shape, voice pitch or facial features; in fact, all traits linked to sexual maturity, age and parity or substantially influenced by sex hormones (which are factors influencing immediate fertility) have the potential to influence physical attractiveness (see, e.g. Symons, ; Henss, ; Singh, ; Jasienska et al ., ; Feinberg et al ., ; Law Smith et al ., ; Pipitone & Gallup, ; Singh et al ., ; Little et al ., ; Puts et al ., , ; Pfluger et al ., ; Jones, ; Mondragón‐Ceballos et al ., ; Sugiyama, ; Butovskaya et al ., but see Marcinkowska et al ., , for some modulations of these preferences). To increase their reproductive success, males should prefer females of the age at which age‐specific fertility peaks, at least for short‐term mates (Maestripieri et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Women's attractiveness is linked to expected age at menopause

Bovet

Barkat‐Defradas

Durand

et al. 2017

J of Evolutionary Biology

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A great number of studies have shown that features linked to immediate fertility explain a large part of the variance in female attractiveness. This is consistent with an evolutionary perspective, as men are expected to prefer females at the age at which fertility peaks (at least for short-term relationships) in order to increase their reproductive success. However, for long-term relationships, a high residual reproductive value (the expected future reproductive output, linked to age at menopause) becomes relevant as well. In that case, young age and late menopause are expected to be preferred by men. However, the extent to which facial features provide cues to the likely age at menopause has never been investigated so far. Here, we show that expected age at menopause is linked to facial attractiveness of young women. As age at menopause is heritable, we used the mother's age at menopause as a proxy for her daughter's expected age of menopause. We found that men judged faces of women with a later expected age at menopause as more attractive than those of women with an earlier expected age at menopause. This result holds when age, cues of immediate fertility and facial ageing were controlled for. Additionally, we found that the expected age at menopause was not correlated with any of the other variables considered (including immediate fertility cues and facial ageing). Our results show the existence of a new correlate of women's facial attractiveness, expected age at menopause, which is independent of immediate fertility cues and facial ageing.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's attractiveness is linked to expected age at menopause

Bovet

Barkat‐Defradas

Durand

et al. 2017

J of Evolutionary Biology

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“…Studies have indicated that female waist-to-hip ratio, or WHR, is inversely related to various objective parameters: smaller WHR (i.e. more hourglass-like body figure) indicates higher levels of sex hormones such as estradiol and its precursor testosterone (DeRidder et al, 1990;Mondragón-Ceballos, García Granados, Cerda-Molina, Chavira-Ramírez, & Hernández-López, 2015), smaller health risk (Björntorp, 1991;Folsom et al, 1993;Misra & Vikram, 2003), and a greater availability of fat resources needed for successful fetal brain development (Lassek & Gaulin, 2006. Even though WHR is being used as a unique measure, the waist and hip are associated with different aspects of female health.…”

Section: Waist-to-hip Ratio (Whr)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Attractiveness of the female body: Preference for the average or the supernormal?

Marković¹,

Bulut²

2017

Psihologija

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The main purpose of the present study was to contrast the two hypotheses of female body attractiveness. The first is the "preference-for-the average" hypothesis: the most attractive female body is the one that represents the average body proportions for a given population. The second is the "preference-for-the supernormal" hypothesis: according to the so-called "peak shift effect", the most attractive female body is more feminine than the average. We investigated the preference for three female body characteristics: waist to hip ratio (WHR), buttocks and breasts. There were 456 participants of both genders. Using a program for computer animation (DAZ 3D) three sets of stimuli were generated (WHR, buttocks and breasts). Each set included six stimuli ranked from the lowest to the highest femininity level. Participants were asked to choose the stimulus within each set which they found most attractive (task 1) and average (task 2). One group of participants judged the body parts that were presented in the global context (whole body), while the other group judged the stimuli in the local context (isolated body parts only). Analyses have shown that the most attractive WHR, buttocks and breasts are more feminine (meaning smaller for WHR and larger for breasts and buttocks) than average ones, for both genders and in both presentation contexts. The effect of gender was obtained only for the most attractive breasts: males prefer larger breasts than females. Finally, most attractive and average WHR and breasts were less feminine in the local than in the global context. These results support the preference-forthe supernormal hypothesis: all analyses have shown that both male and female participants preferred female body parts which are more feminine than those judged average.

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“…In a sexual-selection evolutionist framework, perceiving a static female body vs. a dynamic male body may boost the salience of gender-typing physical traits, such as WHR for women and muscularity for men. Numerous studies, indeed, have shown that a female body is strongly defined by the WHR, since it appears to be related to objective gender-specific qualities such as the levels of sex hormones (e.g., estradiol;De Ridder et al, 1990;Mondragón-Ceballos et al, 2015), the accessibility to fat resources suitable for fetal neurodevelopment (Lassek and Gaulin, 2008), and the more general capacity to sustain pregnancy (Singh, 1993). Obviously, WHR might only serve as a proxy for covariating bodily traits that shape the entire body phenotype and co-determine the judgment of body attractiveness (Brooks et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motion and Gender-Typing Features Interact in the Perception of Human Bodies

2020

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The human body conveys socially relevant information, including a person's gender. Several studies have shown that both shape and motion inform gender judgments of bodies. However, while body shape seems to influence more the judgment of female bodies, body motion seems to play a major role in the judgments of male bodies. Yet, the interdependence of morphologic and dynamic cues in shaping gender judgment and attractiveness evaluation in body perception is still unclear. In two experiments, we investigated how variations of implied motion and shape interact in perceptual and affective judgments of female and male bodies. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to provide ratings for masculinity and femininity of virtual renderings of human bodies with variable gender-typing features and implied motion. We found evidence of a tendency to perceive bodies in static poses as more feminine and bodies in dynamic poses as more masculine. In Experiment 2, participants rated the same pictures for dynamism and pleasantness. We found that male bodies were judged more dynamic than female bodies with the same pose. Also, female bodies were liked more in static than in dynamic poses. A mediation analysis allowed us to further shed light on the relationship between gender-typing features and motion, suggesting that the less is the movement conveyed by a female body, the greater is an observer's sensitivity to its femininity, and this leads to a more positive evaluation of its pleasantness. Our findings hint to an association between stillness and femininity in body perception, which can stem from either the evolutionary meaning of sexual selection and/or the influence of cultural norms.

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Waist-to-Hip Ratio, but Not Body Mass Index, Is Associated with Testosterone and Estradiol Concentrations in Young Women

Cited by 24 publications

References 44 publications

Women's attractiveness is linked to expected age at menopause

Women's attractiveness is linked to expected age at menopause

Attractiveness of the female body: Preference for the average or the supernormal?

Motion and Gender-Typing Features Interact in the Perception of Human Bodies

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