

Optimal Waist-to-Hip Ratios in Women Activate Neural Reward Centers in Men - cwan
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009042

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waterlesscloud
Translation of title - "Babes with curves are hot!!!"

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gcb
tl;dr there's no pics.

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radu_floricica
This is just a confirmation/refinement of something known for a very long
time. I just finished reading [http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Desire-
Revised-4/dp/04650080...](http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Desire-
Revised-4/dp/046500802X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266311756&sr=8-1) , if
you're interested in such stuff it's a really good book. Most of human "mating
behaviour" is understood to a pretty amazing degree if you read the right
things. Doesn't make actual mating any easier :p but it puts a lot of
perspective into it.

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jff
Didn't Sir Mix-a-Lot already formulate this as "My anaconda don't want none
unless you've got buns, hon"?

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Groxx
At the risk of sounding snobbish, brains turn me on _way_ more than bodies.
Brains last, bodies go pretty quickly.

Maybe I'm just poorly reward-motivated, though. My wife and I effectively
lived together for 3 years before getting married, and we both waited until
marriage for sex.

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csytan

        Brains last, bodies go pretty quickly.
    

Neither last without constant care & maintenance.

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Groxx
Granted, but the stereotypical "ideal" body simply doesn't last through a
lifetime, no matter how it's maintained, though a mind can last through even
the longest life.

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metamemetics
news: Scientists Discover That People Think That Things That They Think Are
Good Are Good.

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swernli
Interestingly enough, Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) has come up here before:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=908868>

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fibonacci
I kinda' prefer the golden ratio, myself. NSFW:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/nsfw/comments/9v6zt/curvy_in_all_the...](http://www.reddit.com/r/nsfw/comments/9v6zt/curvy_in_all_the_right_places_follows_the_golden/)

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gcb
Wonder why there's tons of those articles and they talk about fertility cues
but never deliver any solid data on this.

it's always 'women prefer this mans face because of fertility cues', 'man
prefers this ass because of fertility cues'.

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Groxx
This is relatively solid data, actually. They used a fMRI to watch the blood
flow (indicative of activity) in the "reward center(s)" of the brain with a
higher incidence than without that 0.7 ratio.

* shrug * more proof that the super-thin look is horrible for both women AND men.

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Tichy
I'd like to see the data on the hip-waist ratio indicating higher fertility.
Seems to me most women are capable of bearing children.

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pyre
The baby has to fit through the hole in the middle of the pelvis. If a women's
hips are narrower I would suspect that there is a higher likelihood of her
birth canal being narrower meaning less chance of a successful natural birth.

You really have to discount c-sections and such when thinking about
'fertility' since it would stand to reason that a lot of reactions are
instinctual.

> _I'd like to see the data on the hip-waist ratio indicating higher
> fertility_

You might have trouble with that if you follow my advice and ignore medical
'intervention' like C-sections since in previous years doctors would do a
C-section at the drop of a hat (IIRC, the rate used to be 80% whereas now it's
around 60%).

[edit] further investigation makes my claims to be a bit 'pie in the sky:'
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-section#Incidence>

Here is another relevant tidbit I found while investigating:

    
    
      A previously unexplored reason for the increasing section rate is the
      evolution of birth weight and maternal pelvis size. Since the advent of
      successful Caesarean birth over the last 150 years, mothers with a small
      pelvis and babies with a large birth weight have survived and contributed to
      these traits increasing in the population. Even without fears of malpractice,
      without maternal obesity and diabetes, and without other widely quoted
      factors, the C-section rate will continue to rise simply due to slow changes
      in population genetics.

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Tichy
Good point about the c-sections, but still, I am not entirely convinced. For
one thing, that wouldn't explain waist/hip, or would it? It would then all be
hip, and women would get increasingly larger hips? Also, thinking about Asia,
I think women are very tiny there, and they still get children. Their babies
are probably smaller, too. But making bigger and bigger babies does not seem
to be a "goal" of evolution, either. Otherwise a woman's height would be
attractive, which I don't think is the case.

