Women still want tall men with big muscles

IT’S bad news for sensitive, skinny men, but the old rules may still apply in the dating game.

When it comes to what women want, muscular, tall men still win out, a study suggests.

Scientists showed 160 women photographs of shirtless, faceless men and asked them to rate their attractiveness. The results show men who looked strong, with muscular arms and toned torsos, did far better than those who had worked a little less hard at the gym.

The appearance of physical strength was by far the biggest factor in determining how attractive a man was seen to be. It accounted for more than 70 per cent of men’s attractiveness.

Tall men also did well, although less so, with strength, height and leanness all taken together making up 80 per cent of the attractiveness of the men.

Researchers said: ‘The results show most male bodily attractiveness stems from cues of formidability and physical strength. This effect of height and weight on attractiveness may be due to mate choice mechanisms responding to cues of health, or to the benefits that height and lean bodies have in protracted aggression, hunting and other aspects of fighting ability.’

Not one woman showed a ‘statistically significant preference for weaker men’, the Australian researchers said, although one appeared to prefer weaker men when looking at them from the front. She fell in line with the rest when given a side view.

The study appears slightly at odds with other research indicating that some women prefer men with less masculine faces.