Waist-to-hip ratio, body-mass index, age and number of children in seven traditional societies

M Butovskaya,D Dronova,E Selivanova,M Karwowski,P Sorokowski,J Fedenok,M Negasheva,A Sabiniewicz,A Sorokowska

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-01916-9

Abstract

It has been suggested that the preference for low WHRs evolved because low WHR provided a cue to female reproductive status and health, and therefore to her reproductive value. The present study aimed to test whether WHR might indeed be a reliable cue to female reproductive history (with lower WHRs indicating lower number of children). Previous studies showed such a relationship for modern and industrialized populations, but it has not been investigated in natural fertility, indigenous, more energy constrained populations facing greater trade-offs in energy allocation than do modern societies. Our sample comprised 925 women aged 13 to 95 years from seven non-industrial societies including tribes from Sub-Saharan Africa (Hadza, Datoga, and Isanzu), Western Siberia (Ob Ugric people: Khanty and Mansi), South America (Tsimane) and South Asia (Minahasans and Sangirese). We demonstrated a culturally stable, significant relationship between number of children and WHR among women, controlling for BMI and age. Based on these data, we suggest that WHR is a reliable cue to female reproductive history, and we discuss our results in the context of previous studies indicating usefulness of WHR as an indicator of health and fertility.

Highlights

A woman’s waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is one of the markers of her physical attractiveness and might play role in mate selection
Singh originally hypothesized that males had an evolved preference for low female WHR, because low WHR provided a cue to female reproductive status and health, and to her reproductive value[1, 5]
The observed effect was statistically significant while controlling body-mass index (BMI) and WHRs that differed across participating societies and generally increased with age in each study population

Summary

Introduction

A woman’s WHR is one of the markers of her physical attractiveness and might play role in mate selection Studies conducted before and after this hypothesis indicate that WHR as a marker of fat distribution predicts several health disorders, such as cardiovascular diseases, adult-onset diabetes, elevated plasma lipids, hypertension, cancer (endometrial, ovarian and breast), gall bladder disease, depression, high stress level, and overall mortality[1, 14,15,16,17,18,19,20] It needs to be noted, that many of these health problems (heart diseases, diabetes) were probably not evolutionarily relevant[2, 3, 21]. Men appear to be more sensitive to women’s waist circumferences than hip circumferences[33], which is important given that waist size is a more reliable reproductive indicator than is hip width[4]

Methods

Results

Conclusion