I saw a bunch of commentary, back and forth, on a poll asking men and women whether Olly Murs (a British celebrity) looked better before or after he dieted down to very low bodyfat levels:

Twitter polls are hardly wonderful, but if we assume honesty, men voted 2:1 that he looked better after the transformation and women voted 3.8:1 that he looked better before the transformation. To be fair, neither is a wonderful picture of Mr. Murs; both could be done with more flattering lighting and posture.

The big problem is that neither of these photos is really the ideal body composition in the world in which we actually live. The body composition on the right shows off his musculature better, but he’s into levels of leanness which are sub-ideal for actual living. On the left, he is carrying a bit of fat more than the ideal. That said, I think he looks far more likely to be a good husband and father on the left, and I suspect that this is the question most women were answering (who would ask which photo looks better for selling underwear, or some other purpose?), and the reasons for this are interesting.

The first thing we need to consider is that the general preference people have for leanness in modern America (perhaps in the West more generally) is actually contextual. We live in a time of abundance and there are various types of being unhealthy that cause people to become fat, so not being fat is an excellent marker for generally good health (including a reasonable mental understanding of health and a general pattern of decent-enough food and exercise choices). However, in places where food is scarce, people tend to find bodyfat more attractive than leanness, and rightly so, because in a food-scarce context, bodyfat shows a lot of very good things about your health and ability to take care of a human being (you). In some studies in such cultures, men rate women with a BMI that technically makes them obese above women with a bodyfat level that we in modern America would call healthy.

So taking this into account, what does the extremely lean body composition on the right tell us in this context? Well, it’s hard to achieve and has no real benefits (unless you’re a rock climber or similar kind of athlete). Further, it’s bordering on (if not beyond) the level of leanness where health is severely impacted; it would not be surprising if his testosterone levels are depressed, for example. (If they aren’t, they will be if he gets a little leaner.) His body probably won’t like being this lean at his age, which means he’ll probably have a harder time dealing with stress and being cheerful. Also, he’s probably stronger in the photo on the left. It’s not understood why, but the typical experience of people who started out less than completely obese and lose fat is that they get weaker. I can speak to this from personal experience—I once trashed my performance at a powerlifting meet by losing around 20 pounds in 5 months (the meet was right after), and I wasn’t even lean at the end of that. The human body just really dislikes caloric deficits and really dislikes not having sufficient fat reserves. And since we are our bodies and aren’t a ghost in a machine, that affects our psyche, too.

There’s also the issue that human beings simply have limited time, effort, and willpower. We’re finite creatures. So if a man is spending a lot of his effort and willpower being extremely lean, he’ll have less left over for other things, like social interactions.

Plus there’s the issue that concern for appearance simply has different connotations in men and women. It can be taken to the point of vanity in either sex, but it takes a greater amount of concern in women to reach the level where it is the sin of vanity. There are complex reasons for this, but the easiest to understand is that since a woman directly uses her body in very intensive ways to care for her young children (especially when they’re inside of her), she needs to put more effort into ensuring that her body is in good condition. And care for appearance is a way of signaling this, including to herself. We human beings do not know ourselves perfectly and so having habits that require spare energy to do are useful signposts to ourselves that we’re taking care of all of the important stuff. If we let those things go, it might well be because there are bigger problems, warranting investigation. This is instinctual, of course, not conscious, but it’s none the less practical.

Males use their bodies to care for their wife and children too, of course, but less directly, which means that far more workarounds are possible (e.g. you can grow crops even if you have to hobble around on a wooden leg by making up for it with extra strength in your arms and cleverness in making tools). And we tend to use our bodies in fewer ways, meaning we can concentrate more energy and effort into those ways. This specialization and indirection mean that we can be tougher and also, within limits, substitute skill for health. And so we need to take less care of ourselves (not none), and consequently need to sign-post it less. Thus it takes less for males to cross the line into vanity.

Now, none of this is to say that Mr. Murs was at the peak of attractiveness in the “before” picture. In it, he’s carrying a little extra fat beyond the minimum necessary for optimal health. If he’d lost only about fifteen pounds, almost everyone would agree he looked better. But with the two options we have, he looks happy in the picture on the left and unhappy in the picture on the right. And that counts for a lot.

I think part of how to get at this is to ask the question: which guy looks like you would want him as a friend? I know that for myself, the guy on the left looks like he’d be a lot more fun to hang out with.