Dr. Devendra Singh

1
Dr. Devendra Singh

• At University of Texas
• Buss, Langlois, etc.
• Psychologist
• Food and alcohol addiction
• Body image and dieting-related research led into
  his early waist-to-hip ratio studies

2
Body Image as Psychological Construct

• Multidimensional self-attitudes toward ones
  body, particularly its appearance
• Self-perceptions, cognitions, affect, and
  behaviours
• Has moderate relationship with self-esteem and
  psychosocial adjustment issues
• e.g., eating disturbances, depression, social
  anxiety, sexual frustration

3
Psychology Today (1972 1985)

• Popular magazine
• Mail-in survey
• Stratified random sample
• Found that women possess more negative body-image
  attitudes than men
• Shape and weight
• Fears of becoming fat
• Occur across lifespan, but especially prevalent
  in adolescence

4
Cash Henry (1995)

• 803 women
• 18-70 years
• 19 cities in 5 U.S.A. geographic regions
• Representative cross-section of age, race,
  income, education
• Door-to-door left questionnaire booklet to be
  collected next day monetary compensation

5
Subscales of the MB SRQ

• Appearance Evaluation (AE)
• 7 items to assess global evaluation of appearance
• Body Areas Satisfaction Scale (BASS)
• Height, weight, hair, face, upper-, mid-, and
  lower-torso
• Overweight Preoccupation (OP)
• Weight vigilance, fat anxiety, current dieting,
  eating restraint

6
Results

• Sizable minority of women report an overall
  negative body image
• 36 report wholesale body dissatisfaction on BASS
• 48 report unfavourable view of their body on AE
• 49 report concerns about being overweight

7
BASS Breakdown

• Physical Area Dissatisfied
  Dissatisfied/Neutral
• Face 11.7 30.4
• Height 13.4 30.2
• Hair 16.3 28.0
• Upper-torso 25.1 47.3
• Muscle tone 36.9 63.9
• Weight 46.0 63.3
• Lower-torso 47.4 64.2
• Mid-torso 51.0 69.8

8
Effect of Age and Race

• Age-cohort differences significant on AE scale,
  but not BASS or OP
• 18-24 years have more favourable body image than
  the four older groups (25-34, 35-44, 45-54,
  55-70)
• Black women had more favourable body image than
  Anglo and Hispanic women

9
Disturbing Trend

• Nearly 50 of the women surveyed reported
  globally negative evaluations of looks and
  concerns about becoming overweight
• Over 33 expressed body-image discontent
• Much worse than the 1985 survey
• 30 --gt 48 unfavourable MB SRQ score

10
Cash, Ancis, Strachan (1997)

• Learning?
• Cultural forces influence body image
• Jackson (1992)
• Across lifespan, women have poorer body image
  than men
• Gender attitudes
• Ideologies

11
Cultural Norms

• Argued that cultural norms and expectations
  encourage women girls to focus attention on
  their physical appearance
• Femininity ideals
• Role of values, attitudes, gender identities?
• Do nontraditional gender attitudes lead to more
  positive body image?

12
Types

• Traditional (T)
• Feminist identity (F)
• Hypotheses
• T associated with greater body-image investment
• T has more negative body-image evaluations and
  affect

13
Study

• 122 female undergraduate students
• Questionnaire
• Gender Attitude Inventory (GAI)
• Gender stereotypes
• Sexual relationships
• Societal organizations

• Male-Female Relations Questionnaire (MFRQ)
• Social interaction with men
• Male preference
• Feminist Identity Development Scale (FIDS)
• Five stages of feminist development
• Multidimensional Body-Self Relations
  Questionnaire (MB SRQ)

14
Results

• Did not support idea that development of feminist
  identity or endorsement of egalitarian social
  identity --gt more positive body image
• Also, traditional identity is not responsible for
  controlling body image issues

15
Waist-to-Hip Ratio

• Not developed by Singh
• Measure going back into early-mid 20th century
  for medical purposes
• Reflects distribution of fat between upper and
  lower body and relative amount of intra- vs.
  extra-abdominal fat
• Measure waist at narrowest point b/t ribs and
  iliac crest and hip at greatest protrusion of
  buttocks circumferences

16
Cutting to the Chase

• Basically, Singhs early work supported a
• Male preference for women with WHRs around 0.7
• Female recognition of male preference

17
WHRattheOscars(a few years back)
0.74
0.70
0.68
0.71
18
Amazon overcoming a Greek (c.
350 BC)
19
Venus (Capitoline type) (Rome copy of Greek, c.
360 BC)
Aphrodite bathing (Roman, c. 150 AD)
20
The Three Graces (by Antonio Canova,
1815-17)
21
Female/Male Differences

• Differences in post-puberty fat deposition
  patterns
• Females add fat to gluteofemoral region
• Males lose fat from gluteofemoral region and add
  to central abdomen and upper body (shoulders,
  neck)

22
WHR Issues

• Age
• Health
• Reproductive fitness, fecundity
• All factor into potential adaptation for mate
  selection

23
Sex Hormonal Role

• Testosterone stimulates fat deposits to abdomen
  and inhibits deposits to gluteofemoral regions
• Estrogens inhibit fat deposits in abdomen and
  maximally stimulate deposits to gluteofemoral
  region (and other regions, too)

24
Android and Gynoid

• Body shapes
• Healthy body weight range
• Highly different from children and elderly
• Altering sex hormones alters fat distributions
  and body shape

Image modified from Pioneer Plaques http//www.nd.
edu/jmontgom/ti/GraphicArchive/ Scans/Original20
Files/Pictograph/PioneerPlaque.jpg
25
Males High Testosterone
26
And Really High Testosterone
27
Female Low Estrogens, High Testosterone(Ms.
Olympia 2003)
28
Children

• Pre-sex hormone
• Fat deposition fairly similar between sexes
• Can be difficult to distinguish by fat deposit
  form
• Clear difference between pre- and post-puberty
  shapes

http//www.tootsiesdancewear.com/members/ 547048/u
ploaded/132C_4.jpg
29
Weight

• Anorexia to obesity both interfere with body
  shape judgments

http//www.humanillnesses.com/original/ images/hdc
_0001_0002_0_img0094.jpg
30
Elderly

• Circulating sex hormones drop
• Females add fat deposits to abdomen
• Male muscle mass drops, reducing android shape
  fat depositions generally follow earlier pattern
• Loss in sex differentiation based on fat
  deposition

31
Health

• Variety of heritable issues linked to fat
  deposition patterns
• Polycystic ovarian syndrome, advanced cirrhosis,
  hypogonadism, Klinefelter syndrome, etc.
• Obesity itself has numerous complications
  cardiac issues, diabetes, stroke, hypertension,
  etc.

32
Reproductive Status

• Obviously, linked to issues of age
• Hormone levels (lutenizing hormone,
  follicle-stimulating hormone, sex steroids)
• Stored energy levels pregnancy and childrearing
  is going to be expensive
• Concealed ovulation and current fecundity status

33
WHR SpeculationPregnant or Plump?(Remember
this?)
34
Pregnancy

• Obvious WHR effect
• Relatively early indicator of pregnancy

http//www.virtualmedicalcentre.com/uploads/VMC/Di
seaseImages/2487_pregnancy_ext_440.jpg
35
Singh (1993)

• Manipulated WHR to change perceived
  attractiveness
• If WHR preference is adaptation, should see
  fairly consistent outcomes
• Attractiveness, healthiness, reproductive capacity

36
Earlier Work on Idealized Figure

• Women guess males prefer thin female
• Males actually prefer not very thin
• Studies utilized body size (thin vs. fat), not
  shape (i.e., fat distribution)
• Singhs work utilized both size and shape

37
Stimuli
Stimuli

• Underweight, normal, overweight
• 0.7 to 1.0 WHRs

38
Results Young Subjects
39
Results

• Generally, similar male and female patterns in
  rankings
• Used both WHR and body weight to rank
• Within weight category, subjects systematically
  used WHR to infer all attributes
• Overall, higher ratings for normal weight than
  under- or overweight figures, and for 0.7 WHR
  across weight categories

40
Results Older Subjects (30-86)
41
Results

• Again, general agreement between sexes
• Unlike younger men, older men didnt rank U7 as
  attractive, healthy, or reproductive

42
Youthfulness

• Lack of association between youthfulness and
  reproductive capacity
• In particular, underweights ranked high for
  youthfulness, but low for reproductive capacity

43
To Young to Reproduce?

• Age estimates
• Underweights 17-19
• Normals 23-26
• Overweights 31-33
• Not because underweights are being judged
  pre-pubescent
• Body weight, more than WHR, used for age estimates

44
Honest Signals

• Signals traits
• Honest if signal correlates with/reliably
  predicts something useful to receiver of signal
• Difficult to fake
• Too much dishonest signaling will disrupt the
  system

45
WHR as Signal

• Singhs work shows males and females attend to
  WHR
• Utilized for a number of determinations
• Health, attractiveness, and particular WHRs
  closely linked
• Hamilton Zuk (1982) sexual selection for
  signals of good health

46
Uniquely Human

• Gluteofemoral fat deposits
• No sexual dimorphism for fat distribution
• Development no more than 5-6 mya, likely much
  more recently

http//www.mccullagh.org/db9/10d-17/vervet-monkey.
jpg
http//s.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/terminal01/2
009/4/20/11/hairless-chimpanzee-10348-1240240236-2
.jpg
http//blog.theavclub.tv/wp-content/uploads/2007/0
5/chimpanzee.jpg
47
Bipedalism and Brain Size

• Bipedal Australopithecines 4.2-3.9 mya
• Brain size increases 2.7 mya
• Newborn apes brain about 200 cc, roughly half
  that of an adults
• Newborn humans brain about 450 cc, roughly a
  third the size of an adults
• Brain of 675 cc would make human head too large
  to birth

48
Ancestral Growth Patterns

• Ancestors left apelike growth when adult brain
  passed about 770 cc
• Beyond this, brain would have to more than double
  from birth
• Beginning of helplessness in infants
• H. habilis, 800 cc brain H. erectus, 900 cc
  brain
• Late H. erectus (post 800 k) tooth growth
  pattern like modern humans (and Neanderthals)
• Puts birthing and childrearing issues becoming
  significant somewhere around 1.7-1.0 mya

49
Fat Stores

• Storage fat
• Depends on nutritional status subcutaneous
  deposits
• 8-10 total body weight, both males and females
• Essential fat
• Includes gender-specific fat, bone marrow, deep
  fat stores, CNS
• 14 of female total body weight only 2-4 in
  males
• Not utilized for short-term food shortage
• Reproductive fat for females
• Gluteofemoral fat stores primarily used in late
  pregnancy and lactation

50
Reproductive Capability

• Gluteofemoral fat stores
• Energy for gestation and lactation
• Proper infant brain development requires lipids
  and lactose
• Differential reproductive success

51
WHR

• Good indicator of general health as well as
  reproductive capacity
• Selection favoured males who picked females with
  stored reproductive calories, not general
  obesity
• Studies show difficulties in conception with
  higher WHRs

Venus of Dolni Vestonice (29,000-25,000 BCE)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileVenus_of_Dolni_Vestonic
e.png
52
Feedback

• Men favoured gynoid fat distribution
• These womens reproductive success increased the
  genes for the gynoid form in the gene pool
• Sexy daughters and sons with fathers preference
• Reasonable argument for WHR as honest signal