Most Men Prefer Averagely Shaped Women

Men prefer average sized women over fashion models and Playboy centrefolds, claim Australian scientists.

In their study the Australian researchers found that men preferred the shape of ordinary women, equivalent to dress size 14, than so-called super-attractive models, according to a study that compared the body shapes of ordinary women, Playboy centrefolds, models from the 1920s and 1990s and glamour girls.

Professor Rob Brooks at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and colleagues, asked 100 male students to judge the attractiveness of 201 line drawings of female torsos with different hip, waist and shoulder measurements.

They discovered that men preferred the average body size of women aged 25 to 44 to so-called "superattractive models". "The orthodoxy says that you will be attractive with a certain waist-hip ratio no matter how the rest of your body varies; our study shows this is not the case!", Professor Brooks said.

When compared with groups of real women, including Playboy centrefolds, Australian escorts advertising on the internet and average Australian women between the ages of 25 and 44, the latter group most closely matched the preferred body shape. That is equivalent to a size 14 dress, or 36-28-38 and 5ft 4in tall, the average size of women in both Australia and Britain.

Note: As this is an Australian based study with Aussie men, the average preferrence of men in other parts of the world might be different!