THE IMPACT OF ACTUAL AND PERCEIVED CHANGES IN BODY-WEIGHT ON WOMENS PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS

To determine whether small changes in body weight are likely to alter women's physical attractiveness, 100 college students were asked to select the more attractive photograph of 33 young women. Each of these 33 women were photographed twice, separated by an 8-week interval during which all of them changed weight. These pairs were presented in varied orders to control for the effects of order and side of presentation. All photographs showed women in a standardized pose and attire with their faces masked. Lighter targets were not consistently selected as more attractive even though 66% of the pairs of photographs differed in perceived attractiveness. The percentage weight difference between the photographs in each pair did not significantly alter the level of preference for one of the photographs. Nonetheless, photographs did tend to receive higher attractiveness ratings when the targets were perceived as weighing less. The results suggest that attractiveness varies more as a function of perceived than actual weight and that small changes in weight may not have a reliable influence on physical attractiveness.