I read recently that Kirsten Haglund has become the 83rd Miss America (Congratulations Kirsten). This fact lead me to discover more information about the Miss America contest, and I was therefore surprised to find that it has an 87 year history, with anthropometric data archived for most years of its existence. A data set such as that would thus allow me to run some statistical tests, and conduct a couple of experiments:

The first being a parallel to the main idea behind this website; namely that seduction methods change over time, and so, as a consequence, what might work at one time or in one situation may not necessarily work in the same way at a different time, or in a different situation. The type of seducee you could meet may conceivably depend upon the body type currently in fashion.

Students of seduction will be aware that the Chevalier de Seingalt, back in 16th century, would present flowers to a lady as a token of his affection; whereas if a gentleman were to attempt a similar gesture in modern times, the lady, unfortunately, would almost invariably construe it to be an attempt to apologise for some (as yet unknown) misdeed; because what was once a romantic expression of interest has now been debased so many times by incompetent, unromantic men trying desperately to regain the favour of a woman, after they had previously managed to embarrass themselves in some way.

The second idea is to test the radical feminist notion that the media has surreptitiously foisted an unrealistic idea of feminine beauty upon the public at large, and somehow forced people to favour an impractical idea of what the ideal female body should look like. As a quick example, a search of the interweb reveals comments relating to the Miss America organisation such as “The perfect body is 5’2” and 95 pounds,” although no reasoning or supporting evidence is given to support those assertions, which I note also clash with socio-biological ideas such as the belief that men are generally attracted to women displaying signs of health (long legs, hourglass figure, large breasts etc.) An examination of the extant information surrounding the history of the Miss America pageant should confirm or refute this contention.

I have also seen it mentioned that artists such as Pieter Pauwel Rubens painted larger women during his lifetime (1577-1640), with the assertion that in those times, only the rich and powerful (i.e. those able to commission a portrait) could afford to become fat, so this was considered a sign of beauty, whereas in modern times the proliferation of cheap fat laden, sugary, starchy foods, combined with the mainly sedentary lifestyles of the lower classes means that it is poorer people who become fat, whilst the better off can afford gym memberships and personal trainers. It’s possible there may be a grain of truth in this information, since it sounds superficially credible, but then there is nothing stopping a poor person from exercising without owning membership to a gym or having a personal trainer, and relatively little preventing them from eating a nutritious balanced diet. Additionally, modern painters such as Lucian Freud (1922- ) still appear to specialise in painting overweight people, so the ‘Rubens’ theory could be spurious.

Data was collected relatively easily for the years 1921-1986, however, from 1987 the Miss America organisation seems to have bowed to pressure from Feminazis, and ceased collecting contestant measurement data. Some information for more recent years was available after trawling through archived news stories, that reported previous Miss America results, and some dimensions were calculated from clues given in mentions of weight loss/gain, or clothing sizes etc. Either way, the post 1986 information is spotty at best, and should be viewed with caution.

From the information found, it was usually possible to calculate Waist/hip ratio (WHR), and Body Mass Index score (BMI). An attempt was made to calculate percentage body fat (YMCA method), but this proved to be less reliable than BMI score, and neck or wrist measurements were not available to recalculate, using more accurate methods.

From the information gathered, the following summary data was obtained:

For those who are interested in trivia, the following information was extracted from the compiled data.

• Youngest Miss America – 15
  Marian Bergeron (1933)

• Oldest Miss Americas – 25
  Colleen Hutchins (1952)
  Debra Maffett (1983)
  Marjorie Vincent (1991)
  Deidre Downs (2005)

• Smallest Waist/Hip ratio - 0.611
  Jacquelyn Mayer (1963)

• Largest Waist/Hip ratio – 0.781
  Margaret Gorman (1921)

• Tallest - 1.80m
  Katherine Shindle (1998)

• Shortest - 1.55m
  Margaret Gorman (1921)

• Lightest - 45.36Kg
  Suzette Charles (1984)

• Heaviest - 65.77Kg
  Katherine Shindle (1998)

• Highest BMI - 22.3
  Fay Lanphier (1925)

• Lowest BMI - 16.8
  Susan Akin (1986)

Using the compiled data set, the median Miss America is 20 years old, 35-24-35.5, 1.7m tall and weighs 53.43Kg. Whilst the modal Miss America is 21 years old, 35-24-36, 1.7m tall and weighs 53.43Kg. Since the mean, median and mode are all very similar values, coupled with a low standard deviation, this would initially suggest that there is some sort of template that the Miss America judges are aiming to apply, however, looking further down the summary table, the ‘r’ values tell a somewhat different story.

Firstly, we see that average age has increased by about 69% since the inception of the competition, whilst average WHR and BMI have decreased by about 40 and 50 percent, respectively. This would seem to be mainly due to the decrease in waist measurement, and possibly because of a slight increase in hip measurement over the same time period. To a lesser extent, bust and height measurements had also increased, whilst weight decreased.

This data clearly dispels the 5’2” and 95 lbs idea of beauty mentioned above. Not one of the girls was found to be 95 lbs or less, and the vast majority of Miss America winners were over 5’2” tall. The data however deserves further more detailed investigation, in view of the ‘r’ values mentioned above. So, the information was converted into graphical trends, as shown below:

Age
The trend of age currently follows a linear course, although I would expect that to show signs of levelling off in future years. The steep angle of the trend line could be because some of the early winners were very young, and in more recent times it would not be considered politically correct to physically admire girls under 18 years old.

Bust
Bust size is interesting; this measurement seems to have increased rapidly, peaking between the late 1960s and early 1970s and is now in a downward trend, defying both current popular ideas that a beautiful woman should have large breasts, and media reports that breast enlargement has become more popular in recent years.

Waist
Waist size appears to approximately mirror bust size; falling to a low in the late 1960s, and now rising. This could be a trend away from the hourglass figure idea of beauty.

Hips
The hip graph on its own is relatively unremarkable; similarly to the age graph, it shows a linear increase in hip size over the years, albeit relatively small increases, year by year.

Waist/Hip Ratio
Traditionally, a WHR of 0.700 has been proclaimed as an ideal of beauty, and up until the 1930s most of the winners had a WHR of 0.700 or greater. Post 1930, nearly all the Miss America winners had a WHR less than 0.700, with the majority of measurements congregating around the 0.667 mark. This may however be a limitation of the 0.700 WHR ideal, which might not have been intended to be such an exacting ratio. 0.700 sounds rather arbitrary, and in any case, most values would round to 0.7 if we shortened the number of decimal places at which it was stated. There are eleven measurements between 1955 and 1986 that seem particularly low, although it appears that in more recent times, this trend has adjusted itself. Unfortunately the lack of post 1986 data forestalls the confirmation of a new trend.

Height
Height shows a linear increase in size over the years; similarly to hip size it is also a fairly small increase per year. I have seen other studies of the general population that attributed an increase in height to better nutrition in recent years.

Weight
Weight seems to have fluctuated around the 55Kg level; there are a number of lower than average readings between 1970 and 1990, but the trend has reverted to the levels of earlier years more recently. Unfortunately, the Miss America organisations decision not to retain data post 1986 means it is difficult to say for sure whether of not this continues to be the case.

Body Mass Index
Doctors advise that a BMI score of 18.5 – 24.9 is considered normal. And, none of the Miss Americas measured could be classed as overweight. In fact, most were at the lower end of the normal range, though there seems to be a cluster during the 1970’s and 1980’s that were classed as underweight. The data that is available for more recent years seems to suggest that the decrease in Miss Americas BMI over the years may be a trend that overshot.

Judging from the above graphs and data, it does appear that there were a number of Miss Americas that were significantly below the population average measurements, mostly during the 1980s. However, the small amount of data I have been able to gather for post 1986 Miss Americas suggests that either the Miss America organisation has changed its judging criteria since that time, or the below mean measurements were the result of a trend overshooting, and then correcting. Obviously future Miss Americas cannot diminish away to nothing, but unfortunately for the Miss America organisation, in refusing to keep post 1986 data, it would seem to have shot itself in the foot, and left its self open to critical claims that it promotes an unhealthy body image.

I was unable to find authoritative body measurement data for the average American woman at short notice, but I was able to gather mean data for 16-24 year old women, compiled as part of a 2006 NHS Health Survey, in the United Kingdom. Obviously, there may be slight differences since this data is for UK women, and not Americans, it also covers a narrower age range than the range of Miss America winners given above. Thus, in 2006 the mean 16-24 year old woman in the UK was 1.64m tall, weighed 64.56Kg and had a BMI of 24.1. Further, according to 2005 data, the mean WHR was 0.776. All measurements which are significantly different from the majority of Miss America title holders.

As a measure of health, the average Miss America and the mean 16-24 year old woman generally seem to be in good health. BMI scores are mostly in the normal range, with few exceptions. Although if height can be treated as a measure of health, the Average Miss America would seem slightly more healthy than the mean 16-24 year old woman.

As a measure of beauty, the average Miss America has a WHR closer to 0.7 than that of the mean 16-24 year old woman.

This just leaves the fact that the average Miss America weighs about 11Kg less than the women sampled in the NHS health survey. The only explanation for this would seem to be that Miss America contestants were encouraged to lose weight before the pageant. This begs the questions, is the weight loss healthy? And why are slimmer than average women considered more attractive than normal? In the case of the first question, the answer must be, so long as the woman stays within normal BMI limits. In the case of the second question, the answer may have something to do with previously made claims that the media portrays images of low weight, slim girls to the population, although without more information, this effect is difficult to validate. On the one hand, lower weight Miss Americas seem to predate the current size zero debate, but on the other hand, to hold the Miss America organisation responsible for promoting severely underweight models throughout the media seems to be a gross over-reaction, because the majority of past winners were within normal parameters.

Returning to the matter of cycles and trends, we have clearly demonstrated, via the graphs produced (above), that body sizes and shapes that are classed as attractive most definitely change over long periods of time. I would therefore speculate that a few years into the future, the type of women which men find attractive may have changed, yet again.

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Posted by Jonathan in Analysis, Sociology