两性新发现：压力让男性更钟爱胖妹妹

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压力让男性更钟爱丰腴体型

　　Most men prefer leggy and lean women, Gisele Bündchen lookalikes, right? Not necessarily.

　　大部分男性的梦中情人应该向名模吉赛尔·邦辰一样高挑纤细。但也有例外。

　　In fact, the body type that a man finds attractive can change depending on his environment and circumstances, a new study finds: when under stress, for instance, men prefer heavier women.

　　有新的研究结果发现，当男性的环境和心境改变时，他们评判体形性感的标准也会随之变化。例如，在身处压力下，男性更偏爱丰腴的女性。

　　The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, reports that when men were placed in stressful situations, then asked to rate the attractiveness of women of varying body sizes, they tended to prefer beefier frames, compared with unstressed men whose tastes skewed thinner.

　　这项研究发表在PLos ONE上。研究人员让被测试男性给各异的体形打分，身处压力的测试者偏向喜欢饱满的身材，而心情轻松的测试者偏爱苗条的体形。

　　“This suggests that our body size preferences are not innate, but are flexible, ” said study co-author Martin Tovée of Newcastle University in the U.K., in an email, noting that they may be influenced by our particular environment and resources.

　　文章的作者之一，英国纽卡索大学的Martin Tovée提到，这个结果说明我们对体形的喜恶不是天生的，而是会改变的，可能是受到当下外部环境和物质条件(resources)的影响。

　　The findings fall in line with evolutionary theories that suggest when resources are scarce or unpredictable, a woman’s thin physique may signal illness, frailty and the inability to reproduce. Indeed, Tovée and colleague Viren Swami of the University of Westminster in London have previously found that men under trying conditions — like extreme hunger — tend to rate heavier women as more attractive. The researchers suggest also that underlying biological mechanisms, such as blood sugar and hormone levels, are major players in how we perceive our surroundings.

　　这项发现有对应的进化论理论支持。进化论认为，当缺乏食物或来源不稳定的情况下，体形纤瘦的女性容易虚弱疲乏，失去生育能力。Tovée和伦敦维斯敏斯特大学的Viren Swami之前发现，当男性感到难受，例如极度饥饿，他们会更偏爱丰腴的女性，觉得他们更性感。他们认为这是本能的生物机制，环境支配着体内的血糖和荷尔蒙。

　　“Our work in parts of Malaysia and Africa has shown that in poorer environments where resources are scarce, people prefer a heavy body in a potential partner, ” said Tovée. “If you live in an environment where food is scarce, being heavier means you have fat stored up as a buffer against a potential food reduction in the future, and that you must be higher social status to afford the food in the first place. Both of these are attractive qualities in a partner in those circumstances.”

　　Tovée说到，“马来西亚和非洲的研究显示了，贫穷社会中，资源匮乏，人们期待未来的伴侣体重更重。当缺乏食物，胖意味着你有脂肪储存来度过之后一段食物紧缺的日子，首先你要有高的社会地位才买得起食物。在这类社会环境下，这两点是优秀伴侣人选应具备的。”

　　Moving from a low-resource environment to a richer one, like the U.K. or the U.S., can cause a shift in these preferences, says Tovée, and to test the theory further, the researchers recruited some male volunteers and manipulated their stress levels — a key problem for people living in poor environments.

　　而在富裕社会，例如英国或美国，人们的偏好却不是这样的。为了进一步证明这个理论，研究人员招募了一些男性试验者，并控制他们的精神压力。而压力是贫穷社会中重要问题之一。

　　The study examined 81 heterosexual men, about half of whom underwent the Trier Social Stress Test. In the test, the men participated in an impromptu job interview in front of four interviewers. They were asked them to “sell” themselves for five minutes, and then calculate answers to simple math problems under time pressure.

　　Afterward, all the study participants were shown images of 10 women with body types ranging from emaciated to obese and were asked to rank them based on their attractiveness.

　　参与研究的81位直男试验者中，一半参加了Trier社会压力测试。测试内容是，试验者没有准备地参加了工作面试，面对4为面试官。试验者要“推销”自己5分钟，随后在规定时间内做简单的计算题。

　　The images were numbered on a scale of 1 to 10 based on the women’s body mass index (BMI)， with 1 representing very thin and 10 obese. The largest body size rated attractive by the stressed-out men was 7.17, which fell in the overweight category. The largest body type deemed attractive by the unstressed control group was 6.25, which was considered normal on the BMI scale.

　　所有试验者都看了10张不同体形女性的照片，跨越瘦骨嶙峋到珠圆玉润。实验者要依据照片中女性的吸引力打分。之后，所有试验者看了10张女性照片。按照照片中的女性体重指数“BMI”，他们被标注1到10的分数，1为最瘦，10为最胖。在压力组男性评选为美丽的女性中，身材最胖的体重指数为7.17，属于超重。而非压力组的结果中，美丽的女性体形BMI指数最大仅为6.25，属于正常。

　　Overall, stressed men preferred a bigger body — their “ideal” figure was a 4.44 — than the unstressed men, who idealized a thinner body type, at 3.90. Stressed-out men not only rated heavier women as more attractive, but they also gave higher ratings to a wider range of body types overall.

　　总体看来，压力中的男性偏好殷实的体形——他们心目中理想身材的BMI是4.44，相对的，非压力组的结果是3.90，更瘦一些。处于压力下的男性不仅觉得胖女人更有吸引力，他们给高分的体形范围也更广。

　　“This shift suggests that stress alters what you find attractive in a potential partner, and it is another factor helping you to optimize the fit of your partner preferences to your environment, ” said Tovée.

　　Understanding how body preferences may change or be influenced by circumstance also sheds light on the development of warped body image, the authors say. “People suffering from conditions such as anorexia nervosa have a distorted perception of body size and body ideals, and it’s important that research focus on the mechanisms underlying and influencing the perception of body size, ” says Tovée.

　　“这个区别显示了，压力能改变对未来配偶的偏好，你会更偏好能适应按照当前环境的配偶。”Tovée阐述。

　　文章中提到，环境能改变或影响我们对身材的喜好，这个发现会让我们更好的理解目前扭曲的体形形象是如何发展形成的。“为追求完美体形，而在厌食症的煎熬下的人对体形的理解是有失偏颇的，这就是为什么研究需要关注影响体形偏好的机制。”Tovée说。

　　Despite our media’s seeming reverence for size-zero models and ripped muscle men, it may help people suffering from eating disorders and other body-image problems to know that such body “ideals” are not exactly ideal after all. “The information from this article could be useful in therapy of anxiety and eating disorders, ” Dr. Igor Galynker, associate chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Beth Israel Medical Center, told ABC News. “The information could be an alternative to thoughts such as, ‘I am fat; no man would find me attractive.’”

　　尽管我们的媒体似乎过度宣扬零号模特和肌肉男，其实却可以帮助饮食絮乱的人，纠正他们对“完美”身材的误解。“本文提供的信息可以应用到烦躁症和饮食混乱症的治疗。”贝斯以色列医学中心精神病和行为科学系副主任Igor Galynker博士，告诉ABC新闻。“我们传达的信息代替了有些人原来的想法：我很胖，没有人觉得我漂亮”。