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This information is hot off the press and you should read it along with the information I have published on the other sister websites on the mathematics of dating.

"It is likely that the perfect 0.7 ratio sends a biological signal to men that this woman is most fertile and most likely to produce a healthy offspring, no matter what size that woman is," says anthropologist Barnaby Dixson, of Wellington, New Zealand.

Where is he coming from to say things like that…

Dixson has, in the laboratory, shown men digitally manipulated photographs of women with different waist to hip ratios. He did this by tracking their eye movements as they looked at the photos.

Other than recording the fact the male subjects scanned the photos from breasts to hips in less than a second, he consistently recorded that the men preferred women with a waist to hip ratio of 0.7.

Rather then stop there, Dixson went on to research the reactions of men in other societies and found the preferred ratio was different. In Cameroon (a country in West Africa), he found the preferred ratio was 0.8. These women are a little more athletic or muscular through the torso, a survivability benefit given the competition for resources in a close to subsistence lifestyle.

Or compare than with Chinese men where the appealing ratio would indicate a preference for the curvaceous woman. Here the preferred ratio is 0.6 (narrow waist and fuller hips).

World wide the range of appeal is a waist to hip ratio between 0.6 and 0.8.

Dixson will continue his work on quantifying what is appealing in the selection of partners. His next project is using the same technique to analyse the preferences of women using digitally altered photographs of men.

If you jump onto dating websites here by clicking on the advertisement links, many of these sites allow the member to optionally record their waist and hip measurements. You can work out your potential partners waist to hip ratio - prove it for yourself.