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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday May 20 2018, @12:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the where-do-income-and-car-type-come-in? dept.

What makes a man attractive? Hint: Look at his limbs

Women prefer a man with legs that are about half his height, according to previous research; scientists believe that is an evolutionary result of women wanting to choose only healthy men. Legs that are too short, for example, have been linked to type 2 diabetes. But other proportions, such as arm length to body height or whether the elbow and knee divide a limb in half, can also relate to a person's health. Do they influence women's views as well?

To answer this, researchers collected average body proportions from roughly 9000 men in the U.S. military and used them to create computer-generated images of male models (pictured). The scientists made the model's arms and legs slightly longer or shorter, and then asked more than 800 heterosexual U.S. women to rank each model's attractiveness.

How long the model's arms were relative to his height didn't seem to matter [open, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.171790] [DX], the team reports today in Royal Society Open Science. And women cared only a little about how the elbow or knee divided a limb. But as seen in previous work, women noticed if the legs made up more or less than half his height—and they didn't like it.


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:21PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:21PM (#681850)

    Calling all incels -- have we got some good surgery for you!

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:26PM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:26PM (#681852) Journal

    Lead into gold, fat into bone.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:52PM (#681858)

      Reminds me of the sumo wrestler problem -- shorter wrestlers (lower center of gravity) have an advantage. There are minimum height rules in some cases -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo#Minimum_height_requirements [wikipedia.org]
      > 1994, the Japanese Sumo Association required that all sumo wrestlers be a minimum 1.73 m (5'8") in height. This prompted 16-year-old Mainoumi Shūhei of Japan (who had failed six previous eligibility tests) to have cosmetic surgery to add an extra 2 cm of silicone to his scalp, which created a large, protruding bulge on his head. In response to this, the Japanese Sumo Association stated that they would no longer accept aspiring wrestlers who surgically enhanced their height, citing health concerns.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by fritsd on Sunday May 20 2018, @05:58PM

    by fritsd (4586) on Sunday May 20 2018, @05:58PM (#681916) Journal

    <tannoy>"doctor Procrustes to the operating theatre! calling dr. Procrustes to the operating theatre!"</tannoy>