This is the ideal body fat level for men according to women

Chapters:

00:00 About The Study

00:43 Body Fat Percentage

01:20 Body Mass Index

01:33 Alignment With Past Results

03:00 Shoulder-To-Waist Ratio

04:04 Consistency Across Sexes

04:35 Summary

Transcript:

What is the most attractive body fat level for a man according to women? Is it the 10% body fat full six pack level, or do women actually prefer the dad bod? This is what a new study investigated.

The researchers had a large group of participants rate the physical attractiveness of male bodies. The photos of the men’s bodies were strategically selected to vary in body fat percentage, waist-to-shoulder ratio, and BMI. The photos were presented in black and white and anonymized to minimize the effect of height, facial attractiveness, skin color, and those types of factors. Body fat percentage was measured by Dexa scans.

The participants came from China, Lithuania and the UK to allow for cross-cultural validation of the results. Both men and women rated the photos and we’ll get to the sex difference in a moment. First here you can see the main finding plotting body fat percentage against physical attractiveness. You can see that the optimum lies somewhere in the range of 10% to 15% body fat, tapering off precipitously as you get closer to overweight and obese levels. You can see that the optimum body fat percentage for physical attractiveness is around 12%, with both lower and higher values resulting in lower ratings of attractiveness. Within the healthy body fat percentage range though, the differences aren’t major. We mainly see decreased attractiveness when we get to overweight levels or very underweight levels. These photos might appear a little bit abstract and artificial, but as we’ll see, the results align perfectly with other research using more real photos.

For BMI the results look very similar as for body fat percentage. And we see an optimum around a BMI of 23 with lower ratings at lower BMI’s, and in particular much lower ratings at higher BMI’s, when people get to overweight levels. These findings are perfectly in line with past research and evolutionary theory. In fact, the results of physical attractiveness align very well with the results for Generally, we see a strong correlation between health and physical attractiveness. We are genetically hardwired to see high body fat levels as physically less attractive, because they are associated with worse health outcomes and lower fertility. Excessively low body fat levels can also be unhealthy when you get to extremely low levels, well below 10% body fat typically. But the main reason that we see that lower body fat levels can be less physically attractive is because they are associated with less fat-free mass.

In past research, we clearly see that what women find most attractive in a man is indications of strength and health. Low body fat levels are not unhealthy until you get to bodybuilding stage like levels, provided that you have enough fat-free mass. So in malnourished populations and people that are just extremely skinny, low body fat levels make you look But when you have enough fat-free mass, it highlights muscularity and low body fat levels actually make you look stronger. At 10% body fat your muscle definition is much higher than at 15% body fat. If you have enough fat-free mass to back up your body fat level, you can be leaner. This also holds mathematically in the sense that body fat percentage goes down even with the same amount of fat mass when you increase the level of fat-free mass. Based on this, you would predict that the more muscle someone has the leaner they can be and still be very attractive.

The results for shoulder-to-waist ratio support this dual effect of muscularity and leanness. We see that when someone has broad shoulders, this is generally considered more attractive up to at least 1.6 times. This is exactly in line with prior research. In fact, 1.6 is known as the Golden Ratio because most research finds that men should have shoulders that are at least 1.6 times as broad as their waist. When we get to even higher ratios with even broader shoulders, the negative is very constraint. It’s generally a little bit less attractive and when you get to extreme levels, things start to look simply cartoonish. But there’s very limited downsides because in evolutionary terms it’s not a negative to be extremely broad-shouldered. And as I said, the results for survival and physical attractiveness align very well. The researchers also concluded most attractive BMI in males was close to the predicted level for maximum survival.

Man’s evolutionary role is to provide and protect, so signaling higher strength is generally beneficial until you get to cartoonish or just unrealistic levels. But in the data we see a virtual plateau after1.6. So having even broader shoulders and 1.6 times your waist does not make you more physically attractive on average. These results are not just consistent with past research and evolutionary theory. There are also There were very small differences between what men and women find be the most attractive body fat level for men. As the researchers concluded, So there was strong intercultural and cross-sex validation of the results. Peak male hotness seems to be achieved by a body fat percentage around 12%, with higher readings being worse and lower readings potentially being worse, especially if you don’t have enough muscle mass. The ideal shoulder-to-waist ratio is 1.6, also known as the Golden Rule, having even broader shoulders than that is not necessary, but also not very detrimental. Whereas having more narrow shoulders or a bigger waist is detrimental. These results are quite consistent across studies, the sexes and cultures, indicating that we are biologically hardwired to find this body shape attractive because it maximizes survival and it’s associated with peak fertility and health outcomes.

If you find this type of evidence-based content interesting, I’d be honored if you would like and subscribe. And if you also want a video on what the ideal level of muscle mass is for peak male attractiveness, I’ve got you covered in the video that should be popping up on your screen now.