RESEARCHERS REVEAL WHAT MEN AND WOMEN CONSIDER AS UNATTRACTIVE

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Researchers from the University of Surrey and University of Oxford assessed how male and female consider and score the attractiveness of people and what they considered unattractive.

To reach their findings, the researchers assessed how male and female interviewers scored the attractiveness of interviewees of both genders, looking at how BMI affects perceptions of beauty. In assessing attractiveness, females judge men and women with higher BMI as less attractive. Also, men do not judge a man with a higher weight negatively, but still see heavier women as less attractive.

The researchers took this relationship between body size and beauty and applied it to patterns of wages. Body size –height for both men and women, BMI for men only– explains wages above and beyond beauty, even when controlling for health status and accounting for selection into working.

“This is the first study that looks at the relationship between BMI and attractiveness, from both gender’s perspective” explained Professor Sonia Oreffice, of the University of Surrey.

“When it comes to ‘beauty’, being an overweight woman is judged negatively by both sexes whereas men are a lot more forgiving towards each other. There is plenty of research that shows how beauty is related to socioeconomic detriment, from schooling to crime to wages. Similar research also explores the negative correlation with BMI but what we have shown is that weight is intrinsically linked to attractiveness and that women are the harshest judges and most harshly judged. Perhaps BMI is not able to distinguish fat from muscular mass, and this is particularly important for male BMI” Professor Sonia Oreffice revealed.

ViV

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