Sometimes, pop culture and science meet in ways that are pretty ridiculous.  The latest example is the renewed attention being given to a study conducted in 2005 by doctors Leif Nelson and Evan Morrison and published in the February 2005 Psychological Science (the abstract of the study can be found here).  The study says that in essence, when economic times are hard—or in what the researchers called “times of resource scarcity”—men prefer women who are heavier by a whopping two or three pounds.  So ladies, the strategy is clear: hit the Hometown Buffet near you every night for a week, then hang out at the unemployment office and you’re sure to meet that future Mr. Right…or Mr. Sort-of-OK.

All kidding aside, is this science?  It seems like the worst kind of pop sociology to us—data applied liberally to a barely-known aspect of human behavior and then broad stroke conclusions drawn.  But Dr. Terry Pettijohn II has a theory about what might be at work here.  He’s a psychologist who has done research in the same vein and his opinion is that when men are flush, they are attracted more to women who are childlike: slender, willowy, nubile.  But when times get rough, men become more like women, who are hard-wired to gravitate toward strong men who can be good providers for them and their offspring.  Pettijohn thinks that a few extra pounds make a woman seem sturdier, tougher, more able to survive hard times.  Translation: when money is short and jobs are insecure, men want a woman whom they don’t have to “take care of.”

So what does this mean?  That the recession is going to be a boom time for women with normal bodies of all shapes and sizes and the decline of the size-zero waif?  Probably not.  Studies like this inevitably overreach, and this one is probably no exception.  We suspect something else may be at work here: low self-esteem on the part of economically depressed men.  We live in a culture where men in particular are defined by what they do for a living and how they provide for their loved ones.  After all, men can’t make babies.  Instead, they build, create, innovate and invent (women do those things, too, but bear with us).  When they are unemployed or in dire career straits, men feel less attractive because society tells them they are less desirable.  So they unconsciously set their sights lower, figuring a truly “hot” woman wouldn’t be attracted to them because perhaps their financial desperation is written on their faces, their slumped shoulders, and their worn shoes.

That makes as much sense to us as any theory and ties in perfectly with our beliefs about Inner Beauty: when you feel confident, you are beautiful to yourself and others.  With so many millions of men and women feeling powerless in this terrible economy, it’s going to be a challenge for this generation to find their own inner beauty and self-esteem…and it’s better if they ignore questionable pop-culture science like this.