WHR: waist to hip ratio

Waist to hip ratio, or WHR, compares the size of your waist to your hips. Because it is so easy to measure it has been used in studies of health, beauty and even intelligence.

To get the number divide the size of your waist by the size of your hips. For example, Jennifer Lopez is 86-58-87 cm, so her WHR is 58/87 or 0.67.

For women, a low WHR, like 0.65, gives them more of an hourglass figure.

Here are some beautiful women listed in order of WHR, from high to low:

0.78	Jean Underwood.
0.77	Megan Fox
0.76
0.75
0.74	Aishwarya Rai.
0.73	Angelina Jolie.
0.72	Twiggy, Eva Pigford.
0.71	Jessica White, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paris Hilton, Heidi Klum.
0.70	= Annette Bening, Jessica Alba, Chanel Iman.
0.69	Greta Garbo, Anna Nicole Smith, Kate Moss.
0.68	Lana Turner, Naomi Campbell, YaYa Da Costa, Vida Guerra.
0.67	Rita Hayworth, Jennifer Lopez, Tyra Banks, Hoopz, Gisele Bundchen.
0.66
0.65	Bo Derek, Adriana Lima, Kim Kardashian.
0.64	Raquel Welch.
0.63	Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Kenya Moore.
0.62	Brianna Francisco.
0.61	Melyssa Ford, Ki Toy Johnson.
0.60	Lizz Robbins, Esther Baxter.
0.59	Jayne Mansfield, Buffie the Body.
0.58	Elizabeth Taylor, Deelishis.
0.57	Brigitte Bardot.
0.56
0.55	Bria Myles, Barbie.

As a rule of thumb, most thin women are more than 0.67 while most thick women are less.

Every year Playboy magazine picks a Playmate of the Year. Their measurements have been dutifully recorded in the Wikipedia. Here is how their WHR has gone up over time:

• 1960s: 0.62
• 1970s: 0.66
• 1980s: 0.67
• 1990s: 0.69
• 2000s: 0.70

That is roughly the same as the change from Sophia Loren to Gwyneth Paltrow.

A study by Devendra Singh of the University of Texas showed that men prefer women with a WHR between 0.72 and 0.68. This is just a dressed up way of saying they like thin women.

Singh says this has been true since the 1920s according to the measurements of Miss Americas and Playboy centrefolds.

I do not believe it: white men in North America from about 1945 to 1980 clearly preferred women well below 0.68. See above. And most black men still seem to. The average WHR of the women listed above who have appeared in black men’s swimsuit magazines in the 2000s is 0.61.

After all, Twiggy, at the upper end of Singh’s range of beauty, seemed shockingly thin in the 1960s – even to white people. But now that has become what white American women – far more so than white men – think is beautiful.

The changes that make a girl into a woman are the very ones that lower her WHR. More than any other single thing it shows that she is healthy and fertile. So it would not be surprising for men to like women with a low WHR.

One study showed that WHR gives a better idea whether someone will develop heart trouble later in life than does the BMI that doctors use. BMI only takes into account overall weight, not where it is. But belly fat is the worst kind for your heart. For women a WHR above 0.80 is dangerous, while for men anything more than 0.95 is bad news.

See also:

• Why I love thick women – why I love women who are 0.67 or less
• thick black women
• The ten most beautiful women in the world
• race and beauty
• How a man looks at a woman
• white beauty: a brief history
• Playboy