Happy New Years! Muffti just got home and is glad to say he had good vacations which invovled seeing some of his favourite people in NYC to celebrate Jesus’ birth: CK, Esther, Ariela, EV, Kelsey to name just a few. Great to see you guys!

Anyhow, Muffti saw this on IT Wire (with a video version of it on CNN) and though it’s not jewlicious, he got a kick out of it and thinks you will as well. In any case, it gives partial vindication to Sir-Mix-A-Lot. Shana tovah!

Universities of Pittsburgh and California (Santa Barbara) researchers found that women with “hourglass” figures are more intelligent than women with round or straight bodies, and tend to give birth to children who are more intelligent.

The hourglass-shaped woman is defined as one whose shape consists of a smaller waist than hips.
These hourglass-shaped women were found to also produce more intelligent children, which the study concludes is due to having more omega-3 fatty acids stored in their hips, which is not found as much in other shaped women.

Omega-3, which is found in oily fish, is a substance that is necessary for the proper growth of the fetus’ brain during pregnancy.

Women with larger waists, more rounded bodies, have more omega-6 stored in their waists, which was found to be less suited to brain growth, and less omega-3 stored in their hips, which is also less desirable for brain growth. Slender women, with smaller waists and hips, were found to have less omega-3 and omega-6, overall, in both hips and waists. This combination would have less affect on intelligence of the baby.

The eating of omega-3 in such fish as wild salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies, and sardines, is also linked to a healthier life style for adults. More concentrations of omega-6 over omega-3 in the human body has been thought to produce more diseases, but that connection has not been verified. Omega-6 is found in cereals, nuts, whole-grains, vegetable oils, and eggs and poultry.

The report, which will be published the week of November 11, 2007, in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, states that based on a study of 16,000 women and girls, females with smaller waists and bigger hips are more intelligent then females with other shapes.

Specifically, the study found that the greater difference between the circumference of the waist and the hips, the higher the women performed on intelligence tests.

The paper was made available online on October 29, 2007 at the journal’s website.

The article is entitled “Waist-hip ratio and cognitive ability: is gluteofemoral fat a privileged store of neurodevelopmental resources?”. The two authors are William D. Lassek, from the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), and Steven J.C. Gaulin, from the Department of Anthropology at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

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19 Comments

  • Now if we can just get the guys to stop staring at our chests when we’re trying to explain fractals and stuff…

  • “Specifically, the study found that the greater difference between the circumference of the waist and the hips, the higher the women performed on intelligence tests.”
    Could it be that smart women watch and control their weight?

  • Brian, there are skinny women with a low whr and women with several extra kilos with a high whr. So I think the studies say that womanly-looking women are the better breeders, so to speak. But as Muffti and I already agreed in an email conversation, there probably are more factors to be considered, e.g. that children of curvy women might be more likely to have regular meals at home (–> more structure), may more likely have got a stay-home mum, may more likely have been breast-fed and (I know I’ll get chided for this) will not get raised on an exclusively vegan diet. Also, many women that smoke do so to stay skinny, and a study from the Charité hospital in Berlin suggested that smoking might have a negative effect on the amount of grey matter in the brain (they need to run a study with a larger number of participants though to verify this theory) etc.

  • Smart men go for slim waists. We needed a study to tell us this?

  • Now if we can just get the guys to stop staring at our chests when we’re trying to explain fractals and stuff…

    Studies have shown that this stimulates activity.

  • Now if we can just get the guys to stop staring at our chests when we’re trying to explain fractals and stuff…

    P.S. Fractals are a great cure for insomnia.

  • Studies have shown that this stimulates activity.

    Show me your data 😉

  • Well, my mother has an ass that Sir Mixalot would kill for (at least when she was younger, anyway). I guess that explains why I’m such a genius.

    Meanwhile, guess whose mother had a skinny ass and an overabundance of Omega 6:

    “This combination would have less affect on intelligence of the baby.”

    Tom, it’s not just the skinny waist; it’s the hip-waist ratio. I read about a study that showed that regardless of fluctuations in fashion regarding the supposed ideal female weight, men consistently find a certain hip-waist ratio attractive regardless of how fat or skinny the woman is. Evolutionary psychologists believe that this is because a sharply defined hip-waist ratio is indicative of a healthy woman who will, in turn, bear healthy children. The waist needs to be skinny, perhaps, but the ass also needs to be the right size to match the waist. Of course, the bigger the ass, the smaller the waist appears.

  • It is my understanding that intellect is of the realm of Spirit.

    Although the soul animates the flesh, intellect is only “housed” within.

    But undeniably a physical and psychological healthy mother will in most instances birth a healthy baby and will nurture both it’s body and spirit.

    Women.

    God bless them.

  • Ah, Muffti never thought he’d see the day when Ephraim gave a good ol discourse on ass, mentioning as a hot one no one less august than his own mother… 🙂

  • I’m not usually likely to agree with Ephraim, but the ratio he mentioned is 1.2, so ideally a woman’s hips have got 120% of the circumference of her waist to appear most attractive to men. I’ve got no clue as to Ephraim’s marital status, but if my bf boasted about his mother’s behind in public, he could well consider himself dumped. I do wonder though why the ladies are so quiet in response to this post. It’s not as if Muffti had called for disclosing personal information.

  • I’m married and a grandfather, Froylein.

    My mother herself got a great kick out of relaying the story about how attractive black men found her because of her posterior endowments. I only mentioned it because in the context of this thread it clarifies why I am so intelligent.

    Muffti, my mother is now in her 80s, but when she was younger she was quite a stunner. It makes me kind of uncomfortable to say it, but it’s true.

  • Why be uncomfortable? Your mother was a beautiful woman. You have every right to be proud of that fact.