We always knew Nigella Lawson had some thing special about her – and it seems that it’s more than her sultry voice, amazing cooking and curvy figure. New research, which was released last week, has shown that hungry men have a heightened appetite for curvier women.

The research saw 66 hungry and 58 full men to look at images of women in red bikinis and the male volunteers who had not eaten for six hours were more attracted to curves. The study concluded that women with slimmer figures would have more success meeting someone for the first time if they met after dinner rather than beforehand.

Speaking at the Hay Festival, Viren Swami from the University of Westminster who carried out the research, said: “Hunger can change your perception of who is attractive. If a man is hungry they prefer slightly larger breast sizes and slightly larger women.”

Is wealth a factor?

In a second experiment, 1266 men were shown computer-animated pictures of different women and rated their attractiveness. Men who were from lower socio-economic backgrounds also liked the curvier women. Dr Swami concluded that this is because when we are hungry we interpret body size as an indicator of someone who has resources – i.e. food and water and that we have evolved to be drawn to people who we perceive as having better access to food.

 What about women, when they are hungry?

 Previous experiments have shown that the same theory applies to women – and if they are hungry, they also prefer slightly bulkier and muscular men.

Dr Swami added: “For women they generally prefer a slightly heavier man.” He added that the reason this happens again is that when we are hungry, we choose partners who we think can provide food and water – as in cave man days, their weight would suggest they had been successful finding it for themselves.

Are sex and hunger connected?

While eating and sex are two mutually exclusive behaviours, both produce the same advantageous outcome. Professor Gareth Leng from the University of Edinburgh explained that the same part of the brain, which controls appetite and hunger also controls a person’s libido.

Oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, is used to either promote someone’s sex drive or their food cravings and once they are full of food, then sexual desire becomes the main focus. He said that this new research proves there is a link but further investigation would be needed to find the exact link. He added that these two things are fundamental drives and explains why we go for dinner and then hit the sack.

Other evolutionary changes

In his talk, Dr Swami said that people find others more attractive when they are scared. There have been numerous studies around this – and we all know that going to a scary movie or on a rollercoaster will bring us closer to the person who we are with.

However, he added that this link is actually is an evolutionary mistake and we mistake the body’s reaction to adrenalin, including a quickening pulse, sweating and dilating pupils as sexual arousal. Interesting!

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