Curviness is a better predictor of a woman’s body attractiveness than the waist-to-hip ratio

Abstract

The waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is commonly used as an indicator of mid-body fat distribution and is often used to answer health-related questions. It has also been suggested that a woman’s WHR can signal her reproductive fitness. This notion is supported by evidence indicating a relation between WHR and a woman’s physical attractiveness. However, it was also acknowledged that the actual fitness cue is the curviness of a woman’s body. While curviness is easy to perceive, it is difficult to quantify. Therefore, the WHR is often considered as a simple measure of body curviness. However, the WHR and curviness are not uniquely related. After replicating results of a pioneering study in this area, we therefore tested whether the WHR or curviness better predicts a woman’s physical attractiveness. As stimuli, we used simple line drawings of women’s bodies, differing in their curviness and width. The results demonstrate that curviness is a better predictor, even though we used a relatively simple curvature-based measure of curviness. This outcome indicates that the WHR is a poor measure of a woman’s body curviness and underscores the need for a more accurate measure of curviness when assessing the physical attractiveness of a woman’s body.