8/14/2019 Barbie-Shaped Women More Fertile

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Large-breasted, narrow-waisted women have the highest reproductive potential,according to a new study, suggesting western men's penchant for women withan hourglass shape may have some biological justif ication.

Women with a relatively low waist-to-hip ratio and large breasts had about 30 percent higher levels of the female reproductive hormone estradiol than women withother combinations of body shapes, found Grazyna Jasienska, at JagiellonianUniversity in Krakow, Poland and colleagues.

Two of the team, Peter Ell ison and Susan Lipson at Harvard University in the US,have previously shown that higher levels of estradiol are indeed related to higherfertility in women trying to get pregnant.

"If there are 30 per cent higher levels, it means they are roughly three times morelikely to get pregnant," Jasienska, a human biologist, told New Scientist .

"In Western societies, the cultural icon of Barbie as a symbol of female beautyseems to have some biological grounding," concludes the team. "I would be thelast person to propagate Barbie," Jasienska notes wryly. "But when you think

about the hourglass shape, Barbie is sort of the symbol."

Universal feature

The team studied 119 Polish women aged between 24 and 37, who were nottaking any kind of hormonal contraception or medication. Women who wereextremely underweight or overweight were not included.

Saliva samples taken from the women revealed that those with narrow waists andlarge breasts had on average 26 per cent high er levels of the hormone17-b-estradiol, than women of other shapes. In the middle of their menstrualcycle, this peaked at 37 per cent higher levels than women in other groups.

Waist-to-hip ratio also had a strong effect on levels of another female hormone,progesterone. Jasienska, says that higher progesterone levels should also

theoretically translate to increased fertility. However, large breast size was notsignificantly related to increased progesterone.

Jasienska says that a preference for low waist-to-hip ratios is a "universalfeature" in psychological studies of men. "It was interesting to see what weobserved in psychological studies has some biological background ," she says.

Androgenous models

"The results are extremely intriguing," says Maryanne Fisher, a psychologist atYork University in Toronto, Canada, whose study of Playboy centrefolds over 50years revealed a drift in Western men's tastes.

She points out an ongoing debate over the relative importance of waist-to-hipratio and body mass index (BMI) as features used by men to judge femaleattractiveness. She says women who have a "great" waist-to-hip ratio may notnecessarily be attractive if they also have a high BMI.

Fisher's study of Playboy centerfolds showed that over 50 years men'spreferences had moved from voluptuous to more androgenous models who hadhigher WHR but were thinner.

Jasienska notes that some non-Western societies do not use the samemeasurements of female attractiveness. In cul tures which value large women,size may be a more important indicator of nutrition and health and thereforefertility, she says.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI:10.1098/rspb.2004.2712)

Barbie-shaped women more fertile

May 2004 by Shaoni Bhattacharya

Barbie-shaped women more fertile - 05 May 2004 - New Scientist