Human female attractiveness: waveform analysis of body shape

Two putative cues to female physical attractiveness are body mass index (BMI) and shape (particularly the waist-hip ratio or WHR). To determine the relative importance of these cues we asked 23 male and 23 female undergraduates to rate a set of 60 pictures of real women's bodies in front-view for attractiveness. In our set of images, the relative ranges of BMI and WHR favoured WHR. We based these ranges on a sample of 457 women. We did not limit...