Judging the health and attractiveness of female faces: Is the most attractive level of facial adiposity also considered the healthiest?

Abstract

Perceived facial adiposity plays an important role in perceptions of both facial attractiveness and health, but people might differentiate between the level of adiposity they find most attractive and healthy. The aim of this study was therefore to test whether or not similar levels of adiposity in faces were preferred for judgments of health and attractiveness. Fifty-three Caucasian university students were asked to make three-dimensional female faces appear as healthy and attractive as possible by changing faces along a continuum that portrays the facial adiposity change associated with a change in body mass index. Results showed that women preferred a significantly lower level of facial adiposity when judging attractiveness than when judging health, while men did not differentiate between the ‘most attractive’ and ‘most healthy’ looking level of facial adiposity. These findings are discussed in terms of the sociocultural portrayal of female body ideals and the preference for healthy individuals.

Introduction

Facial attractiveness is currently a vibrant field of research, partly because facial attractiveness contributes proportionally more to perceptions of overall attractiveness than bodily attractiveness (Currie and Little, 2009, Peters et al., 2007). Facial attractiveness is determined by a variety of facial cues, namely symmetry, averageness, sexual dimorphism (for reviews see Rhodes, 2006, Thornhill and Gangestad, 1999) and skin condition (Fink, Grammer, & Thornhill, 2001). A recent study identified perceived facial adiposity, or the perception of weight in the face, as an additional cue to facial attractiveness (Coetzee, Perrett, & Stephen, 2009). Perceived facial adiposity plays an important role in judgments of both facial attractiveness and health (Coetzee et al., 2009) and is also significantly associated with measures of actual health (respiratory infections, antibiotics use and blood pressure), making it a valid cue to health (Coetzee et al., 2009).

People do not necessarily prefer the same level of facial adiposity when judging female attractiveness and health. In work on female bodies, Tovée, Furnham, and Swami (2007) found that the most attractive body mass index (BMI; weight scaled for height) is not necessarily considered the healthiest. British observers (both sexes combined) preferred a slightly lower BMI when judging female bodily attractiveness than when judging health, while rural Africans in South Africa and South African migrants to the UK showed a much larger discrepancy, again preferring a lower BMI for attractiveness than for health (Tovée et al., 2007). Swami, Miller, Furnham, Penke, and Tovée (2008) found that ‘unrestricted’ British men (i.e., men who are open to short term relationships) also prefer a slightly lower BMI for attractiveness than for apparent health, while ‘restricted’ British men (i.e., men who prefer long term relationships) prefer a slightly lower BMI for apparent health than for attractiveness in female bodies. These studies indicate that British observers tend to differentiate between the ‘most attractive’ and the ‘most healthy’ looking weight, generally preferring a lower weight for attractiveness than for health, although the difference between the two weight optima are frequently small and not necessarily statistically significant (Swami et al., 2008, Tovée et al., 2007). To our knowledge, no study has yet compared female attractiveness and health preferences for female weight (in faces or bodies).

A whole host of cultural and sociological factors may serve to enhance or weaken the relationship between the ‘most attractive’ and ‘healthiest looking’ BMI (Tovée et al., 2007). Three primary sources of sociocultural influences, namely pressure from family, peers and the media, individually or in combination, may lead individuals to internalize societal messages about the importance of thinness (Stice, 1994). Two recent studies in pre-adolescent girls (Blowers, Loxton, Grady-Flesser, Occhipinti, & Dawe, 2003) and young adult women (Myers & Crowther, 2007) found that although sociocultural factors, as a group, were significantly associated with internalization of the thin ideal (i.e., the belief that being thin is necessary to be attractive) the media was a more important predictor of thin ideal internalization than pressures from family and friends. Sociocultural factors could therefore weaken the relationship between the ‘most attractive’ and ‘healthiest looking’ BMI since the media promulgates a very thin attractiveness ideal (∼18 kg/m²; Spitzer et al., 1999, Tovée et al., 1997), which could be reinforced by peers and family members, but there may not be a concomitant pressure on health ideals.

The aim of this study is to test if people differentiate between the level of facial adiposity they find optimally attractive and healthy in female faces. We specifically focused on the face since the face plays a key role in overall attractiveness (Currie and Little, 2009, Peters et al., 2007) and people are fairly accurate at judging body weight based on the shape of two-dimensional (2D) facial features alone (Coetzee et al., 2009, Coetzee et al., 2010). Here participants were provided with a three-dimensional (3D) facial appearance continuum along which they could make individual faces seem heavier or slimmer and asked to independently choose the facial appearance that looked ‘most attractive’ and ‘most healthy’. We used 3D images for the task since 3D images capture the volumetric changes associated with adiposity more comprehensively than 2D images. Images were also rotated to provide depth perception through the action of motion parallax.

We predicted that women would prefer a lower level of facial adiposity for attractiveness than for health, predominantly because the media portrays a very thin female ideal for attractiveness (Spitzer et al., 1999, Tovée et al., 1997). It was unclear what to predict for male observers, but since they internalize the media message less than women (Van den Berg, Paxton, Keery, Wall, Guo & Neumark-Sztainer, 2007), and have a higher weight preference for optimal attractiveness compared to women (Cohn and Adler, 1992, Fallon and Rozin, 1985) men might be expected to show a comparatively closer alignment between health and attractiveness preferences for adiposity in women's faces.