Two Day Magazine

Brain Scans Show Men Prefer Hourglass Shape

There has always been some debate over the power women have over men. Well, let this article finally put it to rest! New findings by www.livescience.com demonstrates why men are so preoccupied with the curves of a woman’s body. The hourglass figure has long been associated with good health and heightened fertility. It makes sense that evolutionarily speaking men tend to gravitate towards this body type over others when choosing a mate. And now, we have some weight to put behind that age-old argument.

Researchers asked 14 men, with the average age being 25, to rate how attractive they found pictures of naked booties of seven different women before and after these women underwent cosmetic surgery that enhanced their hips. The operation did not make them skinnier or heavier, it just redistributed the weight, by implanting fat from their waists into their butts. Sounds fun!

Then, brain scans were taken of the men while they viewed these photos. The post-surgery pictures activated parts of the men’s brains that are associated with rewards, including regions that are responsive to alcohol and drugs.

Researcher Steven Platek, an evolutionary cognitive neuroscientist from Georgia stated to LiveScience that “these findings could help further our understanding pornography addiction and related disorders, such as erectile dysfunction in the absense of pornography,” he stated. “These findings could also lend to the scientific inquiry about sexual infidelity.”

He goes on to score more points by stating that “The media portrays women as wholly too skinny. It’s not just about body fat, or body mass index.”

How did he come to this conclusion? Well, the scientists found that changes in a woman’s body-mass index (BMI) only affected brain areas that were hooked up to simple visual evaluations of shape and size. This means that the way we judge female beauty (too skinny or too fat) is purely due to society and not related to our biology.

Good, I am planning on eating dessert tonight!

All kidding aside, I know that men love a little junk in the trunk, and when we look back in history, it’s only been in recent years that women have tried to fit into the ever-shrinking box of what the ideal body is to attract a mate. And it’s crazy. There are so many different types of people out there and so many beautiful people, and yet we all try to live up to this one specific standard of beauty:

Size zero, with impossibly perfect breasts, round bottom, chiseled abs, full lips, and tall! We must be tall!

So many of us out there changing our bodies, dyeing our hair, plumping our faces full of toxins, undergoing unnecessary surgeries, and for what? Instead, if we would just take a minute to accept and love ourselves for who we are, then that confidence would shine through and maybe we would walk with a little more swagger, our hips making that lovely figure eight, and attract a mate who loves our strut as much as we do!