from 0.6 in china, south america, and some of africa to 0.8 in cameroon and among the hadza tribe of tanzania, with divergent preferences according to the ethnicity of the observed being noted. it appears that men in westernized societies are more influenced by female waist size than hip size: "hip size indicates pelvic size and the amount of additional fat storage that can be used as a source of energy. waist size conveys information such as current reproductive status or health status ... in westernized societies with no risk of seasonal lack of food, the waist, conveying information about fecundity and health status, will be more important than hip size for assessing a female's attractiveness". by western standards, women in foraging populations have high numbers of pregnancies, high parasite loads, and high caloric dependence on fibrous foods. these variables change across cultures, suggesting that the normal range of female whr was often higher than in western cultures, what constituted locally "whr" varied, and average whr of nubile females and of females of peak fertility varied. thus, a whr that indicates pubertal onset, sex, fertility, hormonal irregularities, and/or differentiates male from female in one population may not do so in another. in a series of 1993 studies done by singh, men used whr and overall body fat to determine a woman's attractiveness. in his first study, men were shown a series of 12 drawings of women with various whrs and body fat. drawings with normal weight and a low whr were associated with the most positive traits (i.e. attractive, sexy, intelligent and healthy). the drawings of thin female figures were not associated with any positive traits except youthfulness. through this study, singh suggests that males and females may have developed innate mechanisms which detect and make use of the whr to assess how healthy an individual is and (particularly for men), infer possible mate value. having a healthy mate improves the chances of producing offspring with inherited genetic protection from various diseases and a healthy mate is more likely to be a good parent (hamilton & zuk, 1982; thornhill, 1993). other studies discovered whr as a signal of attractiveness as well, beyond just examining body fat and fertility. barnaby dixson, gina grimshaw, wayne linklater, and alan dixson conducted a study using eye-tracking techniques to evaluate men's fixation on digitally altered photographs of the same woman, as well as asking the men to evaluate the images based on attractiveness. what they found was while men fixated on the woman's breasts in each photo, they selected the images where the woman had a 0.7 whr as most attractive, regardless of breast size. pazhoohi et al. (2019) using eye tracking confirmed that lower than optimal whrs when posing in contrapposto, which causes one side of the body to have a lower than optimal view-dependent whr, are perceived more attractive and are supernormal stimuli. furthermore, referencing a 2005 study conducted by johnson and tassinary looking at animated human walking stimuli, farid pazhoohi and james r. liddle proposed that men do not solely use whr to evaluate attractiveness, but also a means of sex-differentiation, with higher whr perceived as more masculine and lower whr as an indicator of femininity. pazhoohi and liddle used this idea as a possible additional explanation as to why men perceive a lower whr as more attractive – because it relates to an expression of femininity, as opposed to masculinity and a higher whr. on this basis, it was shown that men with lower, more feminine, whrs feel less comfortable and self-report lower body esteem and self-efficacy than men with higher, more masculine, whrs. to enhance their perceived attractiveness, some women may artificially alter their apparent whr. the methods include the use of a corset to reduce the waist size and hip and buttock padding to increase the apparent size of the hips and buttocks. in an earlier attempt to quantify attractiveness, corset and girdle manufacturers of the 20th century used a calculation called hip spring (or hip-spring or hipspring), calculated by subtracting the waist measurement from the hip measurement. however this calculation fell into disuse because it is a poor indicator of attractiveness; for example, a hip spring of 10 inches (250 mm) would likely be considered quite attractive for an average-sized adult woman, but a child or petite woman with the same number would more likely be seen as malnourished. whr versus bmi attractiveness is related to fertility, not fat content. a study performed by holliday used computer generated female body shapes to construct images which covary with real female body mass (indexed with bmi) and not with body shape (indexed with whr), and vice versa. twelve observers (6 male and 6 female) rated these images for attractiveness during an fmri study. the attractiveness ratings were correlated with changes in bmi and not whr. the results demonstrated that in addition to activation in higher visual areas, changes to bmi had a direct impact on activity within the brain's reward system. this shows that bmi, not whr, modulates reward mechanisms in the brain and that this may have important implications for judgements of ideal body size in eating-disordered individuals. another study, conducted by adrian furnham, was used as an extension of singh and young's 1995 investigation. a total of 137 participants were in the study. there were 98 female participants. the age range was between 16 and 67. the majority of participants were undergraduates, and 90% were white british, the remainder being asian (east indian) and african. their educational and socio-economic backgrounds (nearly all middle class) were fairly homogenous, and none had previously participated in any studies involving female body shape or attractiveness. it was predicted that the effect of breast size on judgment of attractiveness and age estimation would be dependent on overall body fat and the size of the waist-to-hip ratio. all the participants were given a booklet with eight pictures in total. each figure was identified as heavy or slender, feminine whr or masculine whr, and large-breasted or small-breasted. the participants rated the figures for four personal attributes (attractiveness, healthiness, femininity, and kindness/understanding). when ratings of the figures' attractiveness were made, generally it appeared that bust size, whr, and their weight were all important contributory elements. the female participants rated the figures with a low whr as more attractive, healthy, feminine-looking, and in the case of the heavy figure, more kind and understanding than did male participants. this is a particularly interesting finding, as most previous studies report that young women idealize female bodies solely on the basis of thinness. as far as the breast sizes of the slender figures is concerned, whether they had large or small breasts did not appear to have any effect on the ratings of attractiveness or kindness or understanding, and having larger breasts only increased the mean ratings of health and femininity very slightly. however, a heavy figure with a high whr and a large bust was rated as the least attractive and healthy by all participants. waist–hip ratio is also a reliable cue to one's sex and it is hypothesised that the "individuals who represent a mismatch based on the cue provided by whr (e.g., women with high whr values or men with low whr values) would likely be viewed as unattractive by the opposite sex." a 2017 university of wroclaw study of around one thousand women across different cultures—designed to address the conflicting theories—concluded that an attractive whr is not a predictor of peak fertility, but actually a predictor of the onset of fertility and therefore a predictor of maximal long term reproductive potential and minimal chance of raising a competing male's children. the study authors concluded "hence, it can be predicted that the preference for a low whr results from male preference for women at peak residual reproductive value, just prior to first probably fertile ovulatory cycle (and with no previous children). food a number of studies have been carried out with focus on food composition of diets in relation to changes in waist circumference adjusted for body mass index. whole-grain, ready-to-eat, oat cereal diets reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and waist circumference in overweight or obese adults more than low-fibre control food diets. weight loss did not vary between groups. in an american sample of 459 healthy men and women participating in the ongoing 'baltimore longitudinal study of aging', the mean annual increase in waist circumference was more than 3 times as great for the participants in the white-bread cluster compared with the participants using a diet that is high in fruit, vegetables, reduced-fat dairy and whole grains and is low in red or processed meat, fast food and soft drink. a 2011 study suggests that a dietary pattern high in fruit and dairy and low in white bread, processed meat, margarine, and soft drinks may help to prevent abdominal fat accumulation.