Men like curvy women, says study

Here's good news for curvy women. Size zero might be the in-thing for fashion world, but for men it is not, as a new study has found that men like women with an hour-glass figure.

Size zero might be the in-thing for fashion world, but for men it is not, as a new study has found that males like females with curvier figure.

According to the study by American researchers, looking at a woman with shapely body apparently has similar effect on a man's mind as beer and brandy.

Lead researcher Dr Steven Platek of Georgia Gwinnett College, said: "The caucasian, westernised female has somehow been duped into thinking men like very skinny, waify, Kate Moss-type girls. But curviness is the trump card. It's worth it's reproductive weight in gold," he said.

For the study, researchers scanned the brains of 14 young men as they looked at pictures of nude women before and after they had plastic surgery to give them more shapely hips and bottoms, the Daily Mail reported.

The operations didn't reduce their weight, but just redistributed it, the journal PLoS ONE reported.

The team found that the volunteers' brain's 'reward centres' - regions more usually activated by drink and drugs - got excited after seeing the post-operative shots.

High waist to hip ratios - or hourglass figures - proved particularly stimulating. "This could be because wide hips have long been linked with good health and the ability to carry healthy babies," Dr Platek said.