“A woman’s beauty is not in any exaggeration in specialized departments, in the world of fashion a pair of high sandals keeps the arch of the foot closed on the shoe.
– John Updike’s collection of short stories titled “Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories”
Wearing high-heeled shoes by women is a phenomenon that is prevalent in both emerging civilizations and contemporary nations. It is estimated that more than $8 million is spent annually on fashionable footwear in the United States alone.
Several researchers have developed ideas about the performance of women’s high heels in their studies. These theories suggest everything from a media-induced link between high heels and sexual activity to the notion that high heels affect some biomechanical characteristics of women’s gait.
On the other hand, these researchers either did not subject their ideas to empirical testing or concluded that the reasons why women wear high heels did not support the hypothesis in their study. In short, despite the fact that women are almost always seen wearing high heels, the reason why they do so is not fully understood.
New studies conducted by Lewis and his colleagues may shed light on a phenomenon that has not yet been explained. Lewis et al
It looked at the adaptive challenge that only bipeds experience, which is the anterior center of mass shift during pregnancy, as well as the evolution of the morphological adaptation that was needed to solve this adaptive challenge, which was the third to last lumbar vertebra. . The researchers concluded that ancient women who had a moderate degree of spinal curvature enjoyed significant fitness benefits.
These advantages included the ability to withstand multiple pregnancies without damage to the spinal cord and the ability to forage for food for longer periods of time. In turn, the fitness gains experienced by these females create selective conditions for the formation of a male mate preference for such females.
This preference has been shown to exist by men. For our grandmothers, a woman’s vertebral wedge could be determined by the curve of her waist, which was obvious to them.
Based on this, Lewis and his colleagues hypothesize that men prefer a waist angle of less than 45.5 degrees. This value represents the ability to move the center of gravity backward above the hips while avoiding the adaptive problems associated with excessive lumbar curvature.
Insufficient lumbar curvature In support of their theory, Lewis et al. They discovered that the best angle to help female grandparents reduce the biomechanical costs of carrying a baby on two legs and the likelihood of hyperplasia and hyperplasia is the angle where female-male attraction is highest.
If waist curvature is a significant predictor of beauty, and women have psychological processes to improve their physical appearance, then it is reasonable to assume that women attempt to control their waist curvature in ways that increase their perceived attractiveness.
Researchers interested in biomechanics and ergonomics have independently hypothesized that wearing high heels leads to increased curvature of the lumbar spine. When these thoughts come together, they lead to a new theory about why high heels are worn: playing with the curves of a woman’s waist while wearing high heels may be a great way for a woman to enhance her attractiveness.
To test this idea, we conducted two separate studies, one using archival photographs obtained from the Internet and the other using a controlled laboratory environment.
High heels and closed waist shoes are essential.
The facts that have been collected so far about the connection between high heels and a bent back are inconclusive. They were predicated on low-validity measurements and small samples to begin with.
Therefore, despite the common belief that wearing high heels with a higher heel height is associated with a greater curvature of the waist, there is no valid data to support this association. Consequently, the main purpose of this research was to investigate whether wearing high-heeled shoes is associated with an increase in the degree of waist curvature.
Style, curves, and a touch of magic
The relevance of waist curvature as a beauty marker was demonstrated by research conducted by Lewis et al. However, to date, no studies have examined the relationship between women’s waist curvature and wearing high heels. Consequently, the second primary aim of Study 1 was to determine whether women look more attractive when wearing an outfit that includes high heels.
On the Internet, photos of women wearing high heels and flats were retrieved and stored from publicly accessible websites.
We used a within-female design because individual differences in physical attractiveness are so large that it is impossible to detect any between-individual effects of high heels on attractiveness.
That’s why we had to search the internet for photos of a lady taken twice, once when she was wearing heels and once when she was wearing flats. In addition, we wanted to be able to assess women’s waist curvature, which can only be assessed from a side profile photo.
As a result of these limitations, famous women became an ideal source of data. A large number of photographs of famous women were available on the Internet, allowing two photographs of each woman to be identified, one in heels and one in flats, both in profile.
These photos can be found on the Internet. After searching Google for each celebrity, we selected the first profile photo that appeared of a woman wearing heels and the first photo that appeared in flats. As a result of completing this process for 15 unique female celebrities (the full list is available upon request), we ended up with 30 photographs to use as a stimulus set.
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