The relationship between female adiposity and physical attractiveness amongst adults in rural Ranaka village, Botswana

Keywords: obesity, attractiveness, rural, Africa

Abstract

Objective: The aim was to assess the relationship between female adiposity and physical attractiveness among men and women in Botswana.

Design: A cross-sectional study was undertaken.

Setting: Ranaka rural village, Botswana.

Subjects: Randomly selected adults (n = 113, men = 48 and women = 65), 18–50 years old were recruited.

Outcome measures: Scores to indicate the attractiveness of 21 images of female bodies that represented different percentage body fat (%BF) according to participants’ age, gender and body mass index (BMI) were recorded.

Results: The perceptions of physical attractiveness of female body size were similar among men and women, regardless of significant differences between the BMI of men and women. Younger (18–30 years) and older participants (31–50 years) separately, as well as underweight/normal weight versus overweight/obese groups all gave higher attractiveness scores for images with a lower %BF. All groups gave the highest score for the same image (%BF of 19% and waist:hip ratio (WHR) of 0.72), and the lowest score for an image with %BF of 49% and WHR of 0.81. There was a significant negative correlation between attractiveness score and %BF of the images for all groups, but no significant correlation between the attractiveness scores for the images and WHR. There was a consistent outlier in the graphs between attractiveness score and %BF with a %BF of 32% and a WHR of 0.61, with a relatively high score of 7.4 out of 9 for all groups.

Conclusions: Participant groups according to gender, age or BMI gave similar attractiveness scores for leaner female body images.

The full articles is available at https://doi.org/10.1080/16070658.2018.1502909

Author Biographies

H S Kruger, North-West University

Centre of Excellence for Nutrition, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

T Seru, North-West University

Centre of Excellence for Nutrition, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Z J R Mchiza, University of the Western Cape

School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa

J R Speakman, University of Aberdeen

Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Published
2020-04-03
How to Cite
Kruger, H., Seru, T., Mchiza, Z., & Speakman, J. (2020). The relationship between female adiposity and physical attractiveness amongst adults in rural Ranaka village, Botswana. South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 33(1), 5-10. Retrieved from http://sajcn.co.za/index.php/SAJCN/article/view/1318
Section
Original Research