women will compensate for being slightly overweight if they are well educated

It is well known that overweight men can often end up getting married to beautiful women provided that they earn enough money and now a team of researchers working at Columbia University have actually quantified exactly how much more they need to earn in order to offset the unattractiveness of their weight problem.

Professor Pierre-Andre Chiappori from Columbia University recently published his work called -Fatter Attraction: Anthropometric and Socioeconomic Matching on the Marriage Market-, in which he not only states that wealthy fatter men can attract beautiful women but also that women will compensate for being slightly overweight if they are well educated.

Professor Chiappori with his colleagues actually came up with a formula which shows that for each 10% increase in the Body Mass Index of a man it is necessary for his salary to increase by 2% if he wants to carry on attracting the same sort of women.  The formula for women states that an extra year of education will compensate for two extra BMI units.

Obviously this research should be taken with a pinch of salt because for example there is much more to a woman's attractiveness than her weight and the same goes for men. Nevertheless it does raise some important questions about the attractiveness of money and education.

For both men and women though it is important to realize that being overweight is not attractive no matter how much you earn and how well educated you are. It should also be borne in mind that having a lot of money or being well educated does not compensate for the severe health problems which being overweight and obese brings on.

Being slim improves your confidence and this in turn makes men and women more attractive to the opposite sex. Women must also remember that no matter how well educated they are a man always likes his girlfriend or wife to be in shape.

It's always better to be slim than overweight, and money and education while they may shield you from reality will never completely eliminate the extra fat you carry.