How to Measure a Women's Intelligence...

By her hips?!  We all know the stereotypical hour glass figure that men find so attractive.  Think Marilyn Monroe here...she was know for her beauty, but by today standards some would consider her over weight or plus size in the modeling world.  What evolution is doing to our body image is a little scary, especially once you realize why those curvy hips were once so attractive to men!

According to Psychology Today, it's the unusually small waist that makes these women look so curvy. "The other part is having relatively normal- size hips and legs that are well endowed with fat. Even a thin woman carries an astonishing amount of fat in her legs and hips—about a third of her body weight. Men everywhere admire the fat located here."

The research done by Psychology today also found that "The total amount of fat a human female carries is seven times that of other animals, and much more than men! Only bears ready to hibernate, penguins facing a sunless winter without food, or whales swimming in arctic waters have fat percentages that approach those in normal, healthy, trim young women."

Well, I could make a case for hibernation but I'm pretty sure I don't plan on going an entire winter without food or swimming in arctic water!  So what gives?  Why were we "blessed" with all this extra fat.  Extra fat that many women spend a lifetime trying to get rid of and refuse to accept as part of their genetic make up?

According to the research, "Just as human mothers have seven times more body fat than other animals, human babies have a body part that is seven times larger than the one in other animals—an enormous brain that grows fastest in the first two years of life. Other than water, the human brain is mostly fat and has a lot of a particular kind of fat: an omega-3 fat called DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). We can’t make omega-3 fats; they have to come from what we eat, and women tend to stash their DHA in the same hip and leg fat that men value."

So although most of the time men seem to know nothing about women.  It appears that subconsciously they know a lot!

"That’s what men’s brains are telling us—that a woman’s figure signals the abundance of her DHA supply. Studies show that women with curvier hourglass figures have more DHA stored in their body fat. And because DHA makes brains work better, these curvier women also tend to have smarter children and, contrary to what you might expect, to be smarter themselves" 

Hold on, hold on....you can't use the excuse of intelligence to go packin' on the pounds with chocolate cake and chips and dip!  As time passes, American women actually have developed higher fat percentages but with lower DHA levels.  So the quality of your diet is super important in getting these healthy fats.  Focus on getting the omega-3-rich fat we evolved to eat—"fat from green plants, wild fish and seafood, and the meat, milk, and eggs of animals eating their natural diet of grass."

And whenever you get the urge to say something demeaning to yourself about how big your thigh's are, or how much you hate your hips stop and think about why you were made that way.  Every part of the human body has a purpose, even the fat in our thighs!