An association between women's physical attractiveness and the length of their reproductive career in a prospectively longitudinal nationally representative sample

Abstract

Objectives: Why is physical attractiveness more important for women's mate value in long-term mating than in short-term mating? This article replicates Bovet et al.'s (Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 2018; 31:229-238) recent finding that physically attractive women have a later expected age of menopause. Methods: I analyzed the prospectively longitudinal, nationally representative sample of women in the National Child Development Study, applying t-test and multiple regression analyses.Results: Analyses showed that girls rated physically attractive at age 7 underwent menarche 3.12 months earlier than other girls, and they had 32% smaller odds of having undergone menopause before age 51. The results suggest that more physically attractive women have longer reproductive careers, explaining why physical attractiveness may be a more important determinant of women's mate value in long-term mating than in short-term mating. Conclusions: Women's physical attractiveness predicts the timing of menarche and menopause, thereby the length of their reproductive careers.

A Systematic Literature Review of Factors Affecting the Timing of Menarche: The Potential for Climate Change to Impact Women’s Health

“…Two studies were excluded that described physiological changes that occur due to the onset of menarche in general, but with no discussion about early vs. late menarche [27,28], along with another focused on visualizing the changes of menarche for patients [29]. A dubious study on physical attractiveness was also excluded [30]. A detailed analysis was performed on all remaining 112 studies.…”

Physical attractiveness and cardiometabolic risk

“…In this study, we attempted to generate new evidence on the relationship between physical attractiveness and health using the Add Health longitudinal dataset for the United States. The evolutionary perspectives on human biology entail that physical attractiveness serves as a cue for individuals' health reducing the likelihood of disease transmission to following generations and unhealthy offspring (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; de Barra et al, 2013; Kanazawa, 2019; Symons et al, 1995). It is unclear, though, what is the exact nature of this relationship and if it is moderated by the standards of physical attractiveness perpetuated in the contemporary culture and media.…”