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Is this true? Maybe it was back in the 90s. I'm sure some of these "overweight or obese" women look like fertility goddesses (though not all of them obviously).
I was just going off anecdotes regarding what people on the internet say influences attractiveness for them and others. I tried looking for a study to provide something a bit more substantial but didn't find anything useful after a couple searches on Google Scholar. So I tried asking ChatGPT ("Is the impact of obesity on attractiveness different for men and women? Cite your sources.") and it actually gave me real studies, one of which was what I was looking for, though its description of what the study said was not accurate. And looking up the study found there was also an equivalent one done for women. This is the first time ChatGPT has provided me with useful information, out of the 4 times I have tried using it as an information source.
Anyway, it's a pretty small study so maybe there's a better one out there, but it shows what I would expect. It's from 2005 if you think it has dramatically changed for some reason, but I doubt that, particularly since the results were broadly similar for the different cultures of Britain and Malaysia.
Male physical attractiveness in Britain and Malaysia: A cross-cultural study
Female physical attractiveness in Britain and Malaysia: A cross-cultural study
Per Table 2 in both studies, BMI accounted for 84.1% of the variance in female attractiveness rated by British men, but only 53.7% of the variance in male attractiveness rated by British women.
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