Abstract This study examined the influence of the waist‐to‐hip ratio (WHR) and waist‐to‐bust ratio (WBR) on the attractiveness of the Japanese female body. To assess attractiveness, we used silhouette figures to evaluate the WHR and WBR, which were created based on objective measurements of actual women. A total of 398 men aged 20–59 years (mean age 39.79 years, SD = 10.69 years) participated in this study and rated the aesthetic attractiveness (“aesthetic attractiveness”) and sexual attractiveness (“sexual attractiveness”) of the silhouette figures. The analysis revealed that WHR was not related to aesthetics or sexual attractiveness. In contrast, the WBR was significantly related to both aesthetic and sexual attractiveness. The differences in the results of previous studies may be due to differences in the stimuli used, body shape between ethnic groups, and criteria for evaluating attractiveness.
Suzuki et al. (Tue,) studied this question.