We’ve covered the ‘ideal body type’ data here before on BroBible but today’s set of data has a new twist: it appears that women are officially becoming more shallow than men, but not in the way you might think.
The TODAY show commissioned Pittsburgh artist Nickolay Lamm to create 3-D rendered images depicting the ideal body types that both men and women prefer, and in the images women actually prefer the female body to be more exaggerated than men do. According to TODAY, all of this data is based upon a recent British study that determined the ideal body types preferred by men and women. I apologize if it sounds like I’m being a little too vague here, just check out the pics and you’ll see what I mean.
First up, here is that ‘ideal body image vs. average body type’ based on the tastes of women. So the woman in the image on the left is the preferred body type:
Now here is the ‘ideal body type for women’, on the left is the body type that women prefer and on the right you’ll the female body type that men prefer:
Here’s the back:
Here’s what TODAY has to say about the ‘perfect female body’ as determined by women themselves:
The ideal female body according to the men (the one shown on the left in each pair, above) had a BMI of 18.82, a waist-to-hip ratio ratio of .70, and a waist-to-chest ration of .67. The men in the study designed a very similar female ideal (not shown): 18.8, .73, and .69 respectively.
As you can see, in their idea of what the ‘perfect female body type’ is women actually prefer larger breasts than what men prefer. Which begs the question of whether or not women are becoming more shallow than men?
For those of you wondering what women prefer the perfect male body to look like here’s the ‘ideal male body type’ set next to the average male body type:
and
Here’s what TODAY has to say about the perfect male body type (the one that women prefer):
The ideal for men differed from reality, though not by as much as ideal v. reality did for the women. The forty men averaged out to have a BMI of 24.54, a waist-to-hip ratio of .87, and a waist-to-chest ratio of .88 as reflected in the image on the right in each pair, above. The U.S. BMI average for adult men and women is 28.7, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I must admit that I kind of love that the ‘perfect male body’ really isn’t that far off from reality. You look at those images and think ‘I could do that in like 3 months at the gym’, whereas the ‘perfect female body’ determined by women is almost unachievable without freakish genetics.
There’s a quite a bit more data on this over on TODAY, so if you’re interested in reading up more then follow that link!