This was attributed to ancient influences involving the survival benefits of being with a healthy man who can hunt and fight.
In order to test how important physical strength is to men’s bodily attractiveness, scientists showed a group of 160 women photographs of shirtless men and asked for an attractiveness rating.
Estimated physical strength became the biggest factor which determines how attractive a man was perceived and this accounted for more than 70 percent of men’s bodily attractiveness.
The results, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showed that most male bodily attractiveness stems from cues of formidability and physical strength, and that strength increases attractiveness in a linear fashion.
In other words, it was possible to almost perfectly predict how attractive a man’s body is from three things: how physically strong he looks, how tall he is, and how lean he is. Researchers also said looking strong was much more important for man’s attractiveness than being tall or lean.
According to the led researcher, Dr Aaron Sell, from Griffith University in Queensland, “this effect of height and weight on attractiveness may be due to mate choice mechanisms responding to cues of health, or to the benefits height and lean bodies have in protracted aggression, hunting and other aspects of fighting ability.”
However, Sell said while the women in their study preferred the strongest bodies, there was a sizeable dataset across many cultures that showed women did not always prefer the strongest looking faces.
Also, one woman, out of the group that participated in the study, appeared to prefer weaker men while looking at them from the front but later fell in line with the others when given a side view.
Physical features Women finds Attractive on Men
Articulating the male attractive, several other studies have shown 10 men’s body parts ladies find most attractive:
Six Package Abs: A study from Western Illinois University showed that women’s eyes are inevitably drawn to the abdominal of a man at first glance. Not that women are shallow but they rated abs as the sexiest muscle in a man’s body. Plus men with a large amount of abdominal fat have lower levels of testosterone, which translates to a lower sex drive and fertility, according to Gordon Patzer.
The Posterior: I guess not only men stare at a woman’s butt. Women like tight butts just as much as men do.
Broad shoulders: A study from the University of Albany found that a woman’s sexual satisfaction is strongly linked to her partner’s attractiveness and shoulder breadth. Broad, well-defined shoulders have always been considered a sign of strength and masculinity.
Back broadness: accounted for over 79 percent of the variability in a woman’s perceived attraction to a man. A wide V-shaped back beats a man’s height and endowment when it came to physical attractiveness.
Strong arms: Women feels strong arms signify a man’s ability to protect a woman.
Strong chest: women show a stronger attraction toward men with narrow waists, and broad chests and shoulders. Not necessarily brawny and bulked out to the max, according to Perett’s book
Face: Women consider attractive, a compassionate-looking good guy and a bad boy that exudes sexual power. Such contradiction is written in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Mysterious eyes: A study from the University of British Columbia found that women are sexually attracted to brooding men. In other words, women were more attracted to men who act mysterious and aloof at first-glance.
Powerful hands: A poll shows women think a man’s hands tell a lot about him; like what he does for a living, as well as his devotion to grooming and maintenance.