Great news for Cowell and co ...women like your ‘dad bod’
IT’S not what men who sweat away at the gym trying to sculpt a perfect six-pack will want to hear…
Women – even those who are slim and attractive – are happy to pick a flabby-waisted partner, according to a study.
The research will come as no surprise to US President Donald Trump and X Factor judge Simon Cowell, who despite their ‘dad bods’ attracted svelte partners in Melania Knauss and Lauren Silverman.
Yet, sadly for women, the reverse isn’t true, with the research concluding that men are more drawn to slimmer women.
The worldwide study, led by Aberdeen University Professor John Speakman, found that slimmer men are the most picky, preferring partners whose looks match their own. Almost 1,000 people from 12 countries were asked to rate assorted members of the opposite sex for their attractiveness for the study. The volunteers also revealed their own weight.
The researchers found that most females ‘favoured subjects with low levels of adiposity [severely overweight]’ – but not the lowest level, while others were indifferent to body fatness or rated the images depicting individuals with obesity as the most attractive.
But for males rating females, there was ‘a negative relationship between attractiveness and body fatness’.
The authors said young women tend to have a body mass index of about 17 to 20 when they are at their peak fitness and fertility and most attractive. But ‘for males, the link between adiposity and fitness is less clear’.
Even when men are verging on being overweight, with a BMI of 25, they could still be considered ‘highly desirable’, they said.
The study, published in the journal Obesity, said researchers had not found any proof of the theory that obesity might be spreading because overweight people were ‘mutual attracted’, and passing it on to their children.
It concluded: ‘Despite overall trends favouring leaner phenotypes of both sexes as most attractive, everyone is beautiful to somebody of the opposite sex.’