The perfect behind? It’s all in the figures
IN a world full of problems, you’d think they’d have something better to do – but scientists announced yesterday they had found a mathematical formula for the most perfect woman’s bottom.
After poring over photos, asking hundreds of experts and taking precise measurements, it turns out that ideal derrieres all have one thing in common – a magic number corresponding to the ratio between the waist and the hips.
The researchers found the most admired figure – expressed as a ratio of 0.7 – was the same as the vital statistics of stars from the golden age of cinema including Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.
A number of modern celebrities also come close to this magic number.
British actress and model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who has a 25in waist and 35in hips, boasts a ratio of 0.71, calculated by dividing the circumferences of the waist by the hip.
The American singer Beyonce Knowles-Carter is just a fraction off the ideal at 0.65, with a 26in waist and 40in hips.
Scientists from Erasmus University in the Netherlands showed 583 plastic surgeons and 450 members of the public in 40 countries images of a 27-yearold model that were digitally altered to create a range of body shapes.
Overall, the researchers said 39 per cent – the biggest group – found the 0.7 waist to hip ratio was ‘their ideal’.
The authors said: ‘Of all body parts, across many cultures and time, the buttocks have endured as a key body element of female beauty.’ Writing in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, they added: ‘There seems to exist a global consensus regarding the ideal waist to hip ratio.’
Views varied between nations, with surgeons in Latin America preferring the largest buttocks, followed by those in Asia, North America and Europe.
Having a slimmer waist than hips is not just a measure of beauty, but doctors say it may be a better indicator of health than body mass index, which is your weight divided by height squared.
Some women go to great lengths to achieve the perfect behind, with buttock augmentation surgery becoming increasingly popular.
The authors said the numbers of operations had increased by more than 20 per cent between 2014 and 2015.