Curvy Mothers Have Brainier Kids

Off Topic
1

I don’t believe the polyunsaturated fatty acids theory, but the correlation is interesting anyway. Must be some other mechanism at work.

Waist-hip ratio and cognitive ability: is gluteofemoral fat a privileged store of neurodevelopmental resources?

Abstract

Upper-body fat has negative effects and lower-body fat has positive effects on the supply of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential for neurodevelopment. Thus, waist-hip ratio (WHR), a useful proxy for the ratio of upper-body fat to lower-body fat, should predict cognitive ability in women and their offspring.

Moreover, because teenage mothers and their children compete for these resources, their cognitive development should be compromised, but less so for mothers with lower WHRs. These predictions are supported by data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Controlling for other correlates of cognitive ability, women with lower WHRs and their children have significantly higher cognitive test scores, and teenage mothers with lower WHRs and their children are protected from cognitive decrements associated with teen births. These findings support the idea that WHR reflects the availability of neurodevelopmental resources and thus offer a new explanation for men’s preference for low WHR.

2

:slight_smile:

I am not surprised.

3

Or do women with low WHR’s attract more men, allowing them to be more picky, thus leading to fathers with better genes to pass on?

I bet you attractive women have kids that are better at a lot of things.

4

[quote]tedro wrote:
Or do women with low WHR’s attract more men, allowing them to be more picky, thus leading to fathers with better genes to pass on?

I bet you attractive women have kids that are better at a lot of things.[/quote]

Ditto. Seriously now. Curvy women attract hordes of men from which they can pick, and that is a lot simpler theory to explain things.

5

I know that the fat levels present in utero and during the first few years of development significantly affect the growing brains of infants and toddlers.

Perhaps curvier mothers just have higher fat diets? Of course they would have to be the right kinds of fats… extra large fries aren’t going to make any kid smarter.

6

When I was in junior high I always wondered why all the pretty girls had fathers that were doctors or lawyers.

7

How about this:

What if the waist-hip ratio (WHR) is an indicator of a woman’s health and physical “shape”? I.e. a lower WHR (narrow waist, wide hips) indicate better health, better shape, better performance overall. Perhaps just as a very rough indicator, but there might be a correlation anyway.

Now, if a woman is in great shape and health, and she becomes pregnant, the fetus will have the best conditions for development during those critical 9 months.

So maybe this is another factor to correlate the mother’s WHR and the child’s intelligence. Maybe it’s a combination of everything mentioned so far.