Dr. Devendra Singh

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

Body Image as Psychological Construct

• Multidimensional self-attitudes toward one’s 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

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

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

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

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

BASS BreakdownPhysical 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

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

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% --> 48% unfavourable MB SRQ score

Cash, Ancis, & Strachan (1997)

• Learning?

• Cultural forces influence body image

• Jackson (1992)– Across lifespan, women have poorer body

image than men

• Gender attitudes

• Ideologies

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?

“Types”

• Traditional (T)

• Feminist identity (F)

• Hypotheses– T associated with greater body-image

investment– T has more negative body-image evaluations

and affect

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)

Results

• Did not support idea that development of feminist identity or endorsement of egalitarian social identity --> more positive body image

• Also, traditional identity is not responsible for controlling body image issues

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

Cutting to the Chase

• Basically, Singh’s early work supported a:

• Male preference for women with WHRs around 0.7

• Female recognition of male preference

0.74 0.70 0.68 0.71

WHRat

theOscars(a few years back)

Amazon overcoming a Greek (c. 350 BC)

Venus (Capitoline type)(Rome copy of Greek, c. 360 BC)

Aphrodite bathing (Roman, c. 150 AD)

The Three Graces(by Antonio Canova, 1815-17)

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)

WHR Issues

• Age

• Health

• Reproductive fitness, fecundity

• All factor into potential adaptation for mate selection

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)

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 Plaqueshttp://www.nd.edu/~jmontgom/ti/GraphicArchive/Scans/Original%20Files/Pictograph/PioneerPlaque.jpg

Males: High Testosterone

Charles Atlas Leo Robert Dave Draper

And… Really High Testosterone

El Shahat MabroukLee Haney Dorian Yates Ronnie Coleman

Female: Low Estrogens, High Testosterone

(Ms. Olympia 2003)

Children

http://www.tootsiesdancewear.com/members/547048/uploaded/132C_4.jpg

• 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

Weight

• Anorexia to obesity: both interfere with body shape judgments

http://www.humanillnesses.com/original/images/hdc_0001_0002_0_img0094.jpg

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

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.

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

WHR Speculation:Pregnant or Plump?(Remember this?)

Pregnancy

• Obvious WHR effect

• Relatively early indicator of pregnancy

http://www.virtualmedicalcentre.com/uploads/VMC/DiseaseImages/2487_pregnancy_ext_440.jpg

Singh (1993)

• Manipulated WHR to change perceived attractiveness

• If WHR preference is adaptation, should see fairly consistent outcomes

• Attractiveness, healthiness, reproductive capacity

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)

• Singh’s work utilized both size and shape

Stimuli

• Underweight, normal, overweight

• 0.7 to 1.0 WHRs

Stimuli

Results: Young Subjects

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

Results: Older Subjects (30-86)

Results

• Again, general agreement between sexes

• Unlike younger men, older men didn’t rank U7 as attractive, healthy, or reproductive

Youthfulness

• Lack of association between youthfulness and reproductive capacity

• In particular, underweights ranked high for youthfulness, but low for reproductive capacity

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

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

WHR as Signal

• Singh’s 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

Uniquely Human

• Gluteofemoral fat deposits

• No sexual dimorphism for fat distribution

• Development no more than 5-6 mya, likely much more recently

http://s.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/terminal01/2009/4/20/11/hairless-chimpanzee-10348-1240240236-2.jpg

http://blog.theavclub.tv/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/chimpanzee.jpg

http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/10d-17/vervet-monkey.jpg

Bipedalism and Brain Size• Bipedal Australopithecines 4.2-3.9 mya

• Brain size increases ~2.7 mya

• Newborn ape’s brain about 200 cc, roughly half that of an adult’s

• Newborn human’s brain about 450 cc, roughly a third the size of an adult’s

• Brain of 675 cc would make human head too large to birth

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

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

Reproductive Capability

• Gluteofemoral fat stores

• Energy for gestation and lactation

• Proper infant brain development requires lipids and lactose

• Differential reproductive success

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/File:Venus_of_Dolni_Vestonice.png

Feedback

• Men favoured gynoid fat distribution• These women’s 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