The Most Attractive Body Fat Percentage For Men
Is it possible to be too lean?
Summer is coming.
Therefore, I have tried in recent weeks to lose fat, after I had gained weight over the winter. Mainly muscle, but also a little fat. During my attempt to get lean, I have watched quite a few videos of Fitness YouTubers.
In doing so, I noticed that these guys seem to be obsessed with being “shredded” or “ripped” as they say. In their opinion, the leaner the better seems to be the rule.
But how do women see it? What body fat percentage do they find most attractive?
Let’s be honest. One of the biggest motivations of many gym rats is to look good without a shirt on and to be ultimately more attractive to the opposite sex.
A Study Might Reveal The Answer
In this article, Business Insider reports on a study that may have found a man’s most attractive body fat percentage.
In the study, 29 women who were in the fertile stage of their menstrual cycle had to rate pictures of 69 white men who differed greatly in body shape for attractiveness. The fact that the women were in the fertile stage of their menstrual cycle means that they were, according to the article
more receptive to sexual cues, and more responsive to masculinity.
12 Is The Magic Number
The study found that 12% was the most attractive body fat percentage.
Attractiveness by body fat followed a bell-shaped curve: 12% body fat is optimum. If you exceed this value, you become less attractive as your body fat percentage increases. Less body fat than 12%, however, also reduces attractiveness. We can therefore state that it is possible to be too lean. More doesn’t always seem to be better.
This distribution is also called a normal distribution and can be observed in many areas of life. Statisticshowto.com describes it as follows:
A normal distribution, sometimes called the bell curve (or De Moivre distribution [1]), is a distribution that occurs naturally in many situations. For example, the bell curve is seen in tests like the SAT and GRE. The bulk of students will score the average ©, while smaller numbers of students will score a B or D. An even smaller percentage of students score an F or an A. This creates a distribution that resembles a bell (hence the nickname). The bell curve is symmetrical. Half of the data will fall to the left of the mean; half will fall to the right. Many groups follow this type of pattern. That’s why it’s widely used in business, statistics and in government bodies like the FDA:
- Heights of people.
- Measurement errors.
- Blood pressure.
- Points on a test.
- IQ scores.
- Salaries.
However, it should be noted that in the case of body fat, probably significantly more men are above the 12% than below. 12% is not the “average” body fat percentage, but a fairly low one. To undercut it is not so easy.
I would guess that 12% body fat looks something like this:
Do you Want To Become Leaner?
If you too want to feel comfortable without a T-shirt on and need to drop a few pounds to do so, I recommend you read this article.
It tells you how I managed to lose some body fat in the last few weeks with measures like interval fasting, drinking green tea, and some other things.
Thanks for reading!
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