The researchers, including those from Durham university in the UK, worked with about 300 men and women from seven villages in a remote area of the Central American country nicaragua, who either had regular or hardly any television access.
They said the participants completed a questionnaire about their ethnicity, education, income, hunger, language and tv exposure, and also rated the attractiveness of pictures of females of varying body shapes and sizes.
According to their study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people with very limited access to tv found females with a higher Body Mass Index (BMI) more attractive than thinner ones. However, the researchers said, people who often watched tv found slimmer females more attractive. Since the people in these villages were very similar in terms of their ecological constraints, such as nutrition, income and education, but had differing access to tv, the researchers said they were able to isolate the effect of tv exposure from the other factors.
