What is physical beauty?

It’s a no-brainer that our society puts a huge emphasis on physical beauty. We see this in movies with actresses like Megan Fox, Grace Park, Angelina Jolie and so many others. A great example of this is in the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I’m sure you all remember the scene with Megan Fox. The one when she’s sitting on that motorcycle in those tight jean shorts. I’m sure we all have that picture engrained in our minds but I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that no one remembers what she was actually talking about. I know I sure don’t. I was too focused on her…..motorcycle? Yea that’s it her “motorcycle”.

We all know that beauty is based on more than just having the perfect body. As a matter of fact, we will look at some of the psychology behind attraction in later posts. But for now were going to stick purely to the physical. After doing some research I have compiled a list of traits our society defines at physically attractive.

For women its:

-Large eyes

-Small nose

-Small chin

-Narrow cheeks

- High eyebrows

- Lower weight

- Waist-to-hip- ratio of about .7

-Lips

-Symmetry

-Youthful features (Clear skin, straight white teeth, no wrinkles, soft skin, etc)

For Men its:

-Muscular upper body

-Moderately broad shoulders

-Large eyes

-Prominent cheekbones and chin

-High-status clothing

-Waist-to-hip-ratio of about .9

-Good grooming habits

- Dominance

(Note that studies show a smile can make a person appear more attractive regardless of their gender)

It is important to remember that this is a general list of what the current western society finds physically attractive. You would be both horribly vain and shallow to judge someone solely based on their physical appearance. With that said, we all do it to some extent. We’ve all elbowed our friend and said hey check her/him out.

In the next post we are going to look at some of the stereotypes surrounding attractive people. Stereotypes like “she’s gorgeous so she must be self-centered” and “I’m safe because he’s tall”. I will also reveal a stereotype that has always been a huge pet peeve of mine.