The Curse of Curves

Sir Mix-A-lot will probably forever be immortalized for his song Baby Got Back, but what sticks out in that song is the lyrics "36-24-36." Representing a woman's size in inches for her breasts, waist, and hips. After some calculations, someone figured out that American men combined, annually, spend about 3 billion dollars to stare at women that look like Sir Mix-A-Lot's description.  Men are attracted to women who have a "waist size that is 60 to 70 percent of their hip size" (Lassek). Psychologist Devendra Singh and cognitive neuroscientist Steven Platek found that when a man looks at a woman with a Playmate figure,  it ignites a internal pleasure system. The system which curvy women lit up in men, is the same system that is lit when using drugs such as cocaine or heroine. Men's preference for women who look like they belong in an issue of Playboy, has been "shaped by a millennia of evolutionary forces" (Lassek).  What in evolution makes years to shape men to want women with the curse of curves? The answer: an hourglass figure relates to not only a woman's success at being a mother but also, believe it or not, her intelligence.

Marilyn Monroe is famous for having the ideal body size and type. Small waist with curvy hips all on a 5 foot 5 1/2 inch frame. The average Playmate is 5 feet 6 inches tall and 115 pounds. The 24 inch waist held by not only Marilyn but also most Playmates, is only a small part on what gives a woman her curves. The ideal woman also has normal sized legs and hips which are also well graced with fat. That's right, I said it ladies, fat. For what ever reason it may be, men LOVE the fat found in these areas. As much as we may hate it, female humans carry the most amount of fat out of any animal. Carrying seven times the amount of any other animal, excluding ones hibernating bears or Arctic diving whales, though we may compare ourselves to them.  A reason for this could be that the fat stored in women's hips, butt, and legs are a constant. Weight fluctuates but these areas stay untouched during weight changes. 

The human brain, other than water, contains fat, mostly an omega-3 called DHA or docosahexaenoic acid (Lassek). Women, tend to store their DHA in their these loved areas, their hips and legs. A human infant's growing brain needs DHA, which help in the rapid communication of information. Most of the DHA, that a mother feed to her child in her breast milk, comes from the fat stored in her hips and legs, however her supply is not endless and with each child her supply decreases. With this logic comes that a mother gives the greatest amounts of DHA to her first born child, which is "why the first born sibling tends to be the smartest" (Lassek). 

The fact that a woman's DHA amount helps to produce smart children helps to connect a woman's figure to why men want it. Studies have shown that women with "curvier hourglass figures have more DHA stored in their body fat" (Lasske). Higher the DHA, the better the brain works and in turn the curvier the woman the smarter their child will be. Today, American mothers rank near the bottom in the DHA content of breast milk. Therefore, the only way a woman can increase her DHA in her fat stores would be to gain more weight. This can help to explain why American women weigh twenty pounds more now than they did in the 70's, and a whopping forty pounds more than the average Japanese women, who were also found to have four times the amount of DHA.