"Women with curvy figures are likely to be brighter than waif-like counterparts and may well produce more intelligent offspring, a US study suggests. Researchers studied 16,000 women and girls and found the more voluptuous performed better on cognitive tests - as did their children. The bigger the difference between a woman's waist and hips the better. Researchers writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour speculated this was to do with fatty acids found on the hips." - RAPatton from Bookmarklet

"In this area, the fat is likely to be the much touted Omega-3, which could improve the woman's own mental abilities as well as those of her child during pregnancy. Men respond to the double enticement of both an intelligent partner and an intelligent child, the researchers at the Universities of Pittsburgh and California said. The findings appear to be borne out in the educational attainments of at least one of the UK's most famous curvaceous women, Nigella Lawson, who graduated from Oxford." - RAPatton

*feeling markedly more confident about the size of my hips* - tiffany

There are so many ways I could get in trouble with this. Let me just leave it at: curves good. - MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS

Christina Hendricks may be the smartest woman in the whole world - RAPatton from iPhone

*feeling markedly less confident about the size of my hips* - joey

*feeling markedly more tumescent about the thought of Nigella Lawson's curves. - Christopher Harley

Mmmmmm, Nigella Lawson! - josh neff, geek at large

Curvy Women are the best. They know how to make me purr. :D - Danny Minick

Oh Joey... hips is hips ... brains is brains... and "research studies" are (generally) suspect. - MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS

Obvious question: Were the test scores graded on the curve? :) - jeff hammond

and Jeff wins! - MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS

Barry, I know. I'm not really fretting. I know my intellectual strengths and weaknesses despite my sad lack of hips. It's just sad that every time a story about women's bodies comes out, someone has to be the 'loser.' There is another story going around about how men don't actually like size 0-2 women and I'm just thinking (flippantly) well good thing I was lucky enough to land myself one who overlooks my obvious flaws! And I understand that to women who constantly hear the 'you're not thin enough' message (which includes me) things like that may be helpful to read. I just wish we could get to a point where our bodies were accepted as beautiful while falling within a wide range of shapes and sizes without having to justify it with a study or by linking it to some other trait. - joey

The studies always say "this is better" instead of "it doesn't matter". To me, it's a sad statement about humanity that things like this are studied and that we can't get along being different. Yeah I'm thin, but no I'm not a bitch. Yeah I wear a small but no I don't find perfect fitting clothes everywhere I go. Yeah I'm skinny, but no I'm not healthier/more desirable/more whorish/richer/shallower/dumber then you. Whatever are differences are, the least of them is weight. SO fricken divisive. - Heather

Joey - In my younger days... when I was single and *cough*, young, I used to remark that I liked 'em with a pulse. I like my women, well... female? I dunno. There have been large women that I've been very attracted to and "curvy" women that didn't do it for me at all. There have been women that I've liked on sight that I couldn't get away from fast enough once they opened their mouths. And I realize that it's unfair that a woman's attractiveness gets tied up in "what men want." I tended to want the women that wanted me back. Incidentally I got branded as being a "dog" for it. I preferred "hound." Neither turns down nothing but his collar. The latter will treat you better. My 2 cents - MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS

I can finally justify my Oreo habit! It's critical to my er...intellectual growth! - PetuniaGreenBeans

Barry, female friends of mine have said that my "type" is WOMEN. There are curvy women I have the hots for, thin women, & everything in between. - josh neff, geek at large

Preach my brother. - MASTER OF THE OBVIOUS

funny bulls hit 'science' .. probably funded by US government money, or cosmetics industry ..--- it'l be that "attractive women", unfortunately, in capitalism, will get 'better' paying jobs, attract more wealthy partners, and so will get better education, better educated partner genes - because education and healthcare is not for poor - and so will end up having also more intelligent and better educated children ... this changes nothing on a thesis that being republican /robber baron/ is a genetic disorder - Petr Buben

This was published on 12 November 2007. - ashish

"And much as we logically like the idea that men are interested in the waist to hip ratio, it actually features relatively low down the list of feature males look for in a potential partner." - RAPatton from iPhone

"relatively low down" haha - anna sauce

hooray! - Melissa