Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the association of facial proportion and its relation to the golden ratio with the evaluation of facial appearance among Malaysian population. This was a cross-sectional study with 286 randomly selected from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Health Campus students (150 females and 136 males; 100 Malaysian Chinese, 100 Malaysian Malay and 86 Malaysian Indian), with the mean age of 21.54 ± 1.56 (Age range, 18–25). Facial indices obtained from direct facial measurements were used for the classification of facial shape into short, ideal and long. A validated structured questionnaire was used to assess subjects’ evaluation of their own facial appearance. The mean facial indices of Malaysian Indian (MI), Malaysian Chinese (MC) and Malaysian Malay (MM) were 1.59 ± 0.19, 1.57 ± 0.25 and 1.54 ± 0.23 respectively. Only MC showed significant sexual dimorphism in facial index (P = 0.047; P<0.05) but no significant difference was found between races. Out of the 286 subjects, 49 (17.1%) were of ideal facial shape, 156 (54.5%) short and 81 (28.3%) long. The facial evaluation questionnaire showed that MC had the lowest satisfaction with mean score of 2.18 ± 0.97 for overall impression and 2.15 ± 1.04 for facial parts, compared to MM and MI, with mean score of 1.80 ± 0.97 and 1.64 ± 0.74 respectively for overall impression; 1.75 ± 0.95 and 1.70 ± 0.83 respectively for facial parts. In conclusion: 1) Only 17.1% of Malaysian facial proportion conformed to the golden ratio, with majority of the population having short face (54.5%); 2) Facial index did not depend significantly on races; 3) Significant sexual dimorphism was shown among Malaysian Chinese; 4) All three races are generally satisfied with their own facial appearance; 5) No significant association was found between golden ratio and facial evaluation score among Malaysian population.
Highlights
It is commonly said that ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’
The present study and Packiriswamy et al [26] both showed similar pattern and trend in interracial and intersexes comparison. Results from both studies showed that Malaysian Chinese (MC) reported the highest value for both total facial height (TFH) and facial width in male and female subjects
It has been widely maintained that, in comparison to other races, Malaysian Indian (MI) males were revealed to have the lowest values for both TFH and facial width while MI females had the lowest values for facial width
Summary
It is commonly said that ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’. is esthetic judgment entirely subjective and purely a matter of arbitrary personal preference or could there be some scientific backings that guide and govern our perception towards beauty?Ancient Greeks have ventured to question the meaning of beauty and believed that the world is beautiful because there is a certain order, harmony, measure and proportion between its elements [1]. The Golden Ratio or Golden Proportion has been considered as the perfect or ideal ratio for beauty. Since the divine proportion seems to evoke an aesthetically pleasing effect, it might have been hard-wired into our consciousness as a guide towards aesthetic judgment; as proposed by Jefferson in whose paper a universal standard for facial beauty measurement regardless of race, age, sex and other variables is shown [10]. Several studies have shown that beautiful faces have facial measurements close to the golden ratio [11,12,13,14,15,16,17]
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