It’s the distribution of body fat – not the amount – that’s key to a beautiful and shapely body.
Whether you’re a size 8 or 16, where your body stores fat is a fundamental determinant of your attractiveness to those around you. Put simply, extra fat stored on the body is considered attractive when it creates the classic curved female, or hourglass (gynoid), shape.
The attractiveness of the hourglass figure remains consistent across countries, cultures and time. Take, for example, curvaceous Marilyn Monroe and waif-like Kate Moss. While they are separated by several dress sizes (and decades), there’s one thing these beauty icons have in common: they both have the ideal waist-to-hip ratio (WHR).
Multiple studies have shown that as women’s waists become smaller in relation to their hips, they become more attractive to men. This is because wide hips and a small waist is associated with health and fertility and therefore a good potential mate. ‘Studies of male and female perceptions of various body parts have shown that both men and women find a protruding abdomen to be the most unattractive body feature,’ says evolutionary anthropologist Sean McBride. ‘For females especially, fat deposits in areas that disrupt the waist-to-hip ratio lead to a decrease in beauty perception by both men and women.’
The WHR is calculated by measuring the circumference of the waist and then comparing it to the circumference of the hips. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the WHR for healthy, pre-menopausal women is generally between 0.67 and 0.80, and for men between 0.85 and 0.95. The absolute ‘golden ratio’ for women is 70 percent (0.7), which many of the world’s most beautiful women have, including Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Jessica Alba and Victoria’s Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio.
“The attractiveness of the hourglass figure remains consistent across countries, cultures and time”
‘What this all means is that even though you may be carrying excess weight, you can still have a WHR of 0.7. It is the distribution of the weight that is attractive,’ McBride explains.
‘If your waist is 42cm in circumference and your hips are 60cm, you will still have a WHR of 0.7 and still be considered attractive. An overweight woman with a low WHR is judged to be more attractive than a slim woman with a high WHR, which shows that it is the distribution of body fat that is primarily correlated with attractiveness. A woman with a high WHR is typically also perceived to be older than a woman with a low WHR.’
With age, waist circumference becomes an important factor in determining a person’s risk for chronic health conditions. It is used as an indicator of internal fatty deposits that can put the heart, kidneys, liver and pancreas at risk of disease.
It has been shown that women with 0.7 have optimum levels of oestrogen, increased fertility and are less susceptible to diabetes, gallbladder disease, anxiety and depression, some types of cancer as well as cardiovascular disease.
‘Men and women are constantly scanning each other, and the evolved template in our brains compares your body shape to an ideal that has the highest potential for fertility,’ says McBride. ‘So if your fat deposits destroy the hourglass shape, your beauty suffers.’
Most of us are not genetically blessed to have the ‘perfect’ hourglass proportions, but modern body contouring techniques can help sculpt your body to create a lower WHR. Both surgical and non-surgical procedures can remove excess fat on the abdomen and thighs to create a more streamlined silhouette and smaller waist.
Leading a healthy lifestyle (regardless of whether you’ve had a body sculpting procedure) is of paramount importance in monitoring your waist circumference.
The good fat
It’s not necessarily the fat on your body that’s unhealthy, but the distribution of that fat.
Where you store your fat is even more important than what you weigh. Researchers looked at data from almost 360,000 Europeans and found that men and women with the largest waists had around twice the risk of premature death than those with the smallest ones.
The study found that the ideal waist measurements were less than 34 inches for men and less than 28 inches for women. Every two inch increase in waist circumference increased the risk for mortality by 17 percent for men and around 13 percent for women. Other studies have shown an increased risk of stroke as well.
