Researchers have found that--get this--people with the most attractive faces live longer than those whose mugs don't raise pulses very much, according to a study published recently in the journal, EVOLUTION AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR.
One of the researchers, Joshua Henderson of the University of Waterloo in Canada, says their findings go along with the sexual selection theory of evolution, which holds that, when given a choice, people pick mates with biological cues of good genes.
Henderson and Professor Jerry Anglin took 50 yearbook photos from the 1920s of 17-year-olds and had 20 modern-day students "rate" them for good looks and health. Then the researchers looked at the death records of those same folks. Men who'd been rated as attractive lived an average of 76 years. But those that weren't averaged only 69.
The most attractive women lived to an average age of 76, three more than those who weren't rated as all that hot.
The only logical conclusion? "Facial attractiveness in adolescence is predictive of future longevity."
Well, there's another conceivable reason," Henderson says. "It is widely known that attractive people have better jobs, make more money, etc."
"Given that they generally have a higher socio-economic status, it is possible that they have better access to health care and thus, are more likely to live longer," he says.
I'm doomed.
I should learn how to spell, "GOOD."
Guess I will ive to be 200.
not if they're in a teachers' union, they don't.
What if you were attractive when you were young, but you're ugly now?!
And just as likely is that we find symmetry attractive, people who are symmetrical tend to have less health problems because everything is in proportion.
Which would also explain the slightly higher death rate among people that the camera loves. They are actually not symmetrical but the camera distorts so people who are non-symmetrical appear to be and people who are appear not to be.
I'm screwed ... (again)
Does this mean I will die of old age at 40?
On the upside given this article, Michael Moron must be whistling past the graveyard . . .
As I recall, Nick Romano (Knock on Any Door) said: "Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse!"
57 years old and she is still ticking.
Could it be that those concerned about their looks especially being fit exercise more?
What's the revelation?
Healthy people look better than when they are unhealthy. It's not that some people are beautiful and some people are ugly inexorably, fatalistically. Most people have acceptable, normal looks -- but a person really healthy and living right looks good. People who feel bad and aren't living right look bad. It's not relevant to compare oneself to any other; but it does matter greatly how much one's well-being or lack of it, alters their looks.
A lot of ugly people will insist that since they are ugly, they must be smart -- but you don't know how much smarter and better looking that same person would be if they were in their healthiest condition. The fact that they don't look good is generally an expression of their fundamental health and therefore outlook on life. Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder but is also a statement of one's mind.
Unpleasant people are usually unattractive. Wholesome, gregarious people are usually attractive. What's troubling is that we live in a culture that compartmentalizes, fragments and denies our total comprehension -- and so we think good looking people are just good looking and manic-depressives must be brilliant because nobody can understand their tortuous explanations, excuses and alibis.
The reality is that healthy looking people are usually functioning at their best and people who don't look so good aren't. That should not be a mystery requiring "lavishly-funded exhaustive further studies," as the grant writer would have us believe.
Usually, what you see is what you get. The exceptions are not the rule -- yet a few spend most of their time and energy trying to convince us that what is true is not and vice versa. The people promoting this cognitive dissonance usually try to rationalize that good looks come only from plastic surgery and vanity. By far, most good looks are just the normal process of being in good health.
There's no great revelation here. So if you don't like the way you look, get yourself into better health and condition. Don't be like these bitter and resentful people who can only make a living trying to tear down everybody else for being normal, healthy and happy people -- like we see so often in the media.
"... a study published recently in the journal, EVOLUTION AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR."
More junk science!