Stress Makes Men Appreciate Heavier Women

Add stress to the list that includes alcohol in excess, low self-esteem and blindness.

Increased stress in men is associated with a preference for heavier women, according to research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

The researchers, led by Viren Swami of the University of Westminster in London, compared how stressed versus non-stressed men responded to pictures of female bodies varying from emaciated to obese.

They found that the stressed group gave significantly higher ratings to the normal weight and overweight figures than the non-stressed group did, and that the stressed group generally had a broader range of figures they found attractive than the non-stressed group did.

These results, the authors write, are consistent with the idea that people idealize mature morphological traits like heavier body size when they experience an environmental threat such as stress.

No.

They show that when you have a bad relationship with life, i.e., you are "stressed," you will settle for less than if you had a better relationship with life.

How else to explain finding this worthy of appreciation?