The Sexiest Female Body Type And Its Evolutionary Rationale

Darwin sends his regards.

Evolutionary psychology is fascinating to me. It explains human behavior and drives in a logical, evolutionary way. It may not be the most romantic kind of science, which is probably the main reason why it is often criticized. It pisses a lot of people off.

But nature doesn’t seem to care about our feelings. On the contrary. Natural selection can be brutal.

I’m not nearly educated enough to say if everything I write in this article is 100% true. Therefore, I will refer to a book by an evolutionary psychologist. My main source of information is the book “The Ape That Understood The Universe” by Steve Stewart- Williams.

The Most Attractive Female Body Type

Numerous studies, for example, that of Devendra Singh, an evolutionary psychologist, came to the same conclusion. The most attractive female body type is characterized by a low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of about 0.7.

This body type is also known as the hourglass figure. This means that the waist is only 0.7 times as wide as the hips, or the hips are 1.43 times wider than the waist.

Why This Preference Makes Evolutionary Sense

Even if it is not the explicit goal of everyone who has sex these days, the biological purpose of sex is obviously procreation. So the function of sexual attraction is to find a suitable partner with which one can reproduce.

To find a suitable partner for reproduction as a man, you must consider some criteria. Or rather avoid exclusion criteria.

• First of all, it is clear that you need a woman. You cannot reproduce with another man.

Filtering still needs to be done for women as well, as not every woman is fertile. Therefore, the following women must also be excluded from the group of suitable partners for reproduction.

• Girls who are too young and not of sexually mature age yet.
• Old women who are not fertile anymore.
• Women who are already pregnant.

Fascinatingly, a low WHR is not only the most attractive feature but also the most reliable indicator that a woman is fertile since it excludes pretty much all non-fertile humans.

• Men usually have a higher WHR.
• Young girls as well. Children’s hips are still quite narrow regardless of gender. It is not until puberty that girls’ hips widen so that they do not normally reach a low WHR until they are sexually mature.
• Old women usually are not that skinny anymore. A low WHR is very uncommon in old age.
• Pregnant women obviously also have a high WHR due to their big belly.

… so only fertile women remain. At least in theory.

A low HR seems to be the best indicator of female fertility. So biologically it only makes sense that men find it so attractive.

In his great book on human nature, “The Ape That Understood The Universe,” author Steve Stewart-Williams describes it this way:

In short, if men were looking for a reliable cue that a prospective is the right sex, the right age, and capable of getting pregnant, they could hardly do better than WHR.

What about Culture?

You might also suspect that our preferences have been shaped by our culture. Perhaps it’s the women we see on billboards and in television commercials who convey to us what we find attractive?

However, Steward- Williams states that there is a considerable biological contribution to our beauty ideals. He proves this with a study in which pictures of women were evaluated by participants from different ethnic groups. All participants rated very similarly even though they have different cultural backgrounds.

Steward- Williams draws the following conclusion:

The fact that people from very different cultural backgrounds converged so powerfully in their ratings suggests there is a biological contribution. In fact, it suggests more; it suggests that the biological contribution dwarfs the effects of culture.

However, we could argue that all participants were heavily influenced by the media they consume. But Stewart- Williams also invalidates this assumption with the following two arguments:

• The researchers of the mentioned study examined the media exposure of the participants and found out that it did not influence the rating.
• Even newborn babies, who have probably not yet been influenced by TV commercials and Instagram influencers, prefer to look at people whose faces have previously been rated as attractive, according to study results.

This quote sums it up perfectly:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder’s eye has been shaped by natural selection and thus doesn’t vary greatly from age to age or from culture to culture.

Summary

The most attractive female body type is characterized by a relatively low WHR of about 0.7. It indicates that a woman has a high probability of being fertile and therefore a suitable partner for a man to reproduce with, which is probably why men are wired to find it attractive.

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