Sometimes, Japanese guys can seem illogically hung up on numerical parameters when deciding whether or not they find a woman physically attractive. Be it a maximum age or minimum bust measurement, sometimes the amount of technical data being tossed around almost makes it seem more like they’re talking about machinery than women.

But does it really make sense to get so hung up on numbers when dealing with something as subjective as beauty? We’ve seen before that age isn’t anything but a number, so what about weight? A recent survey set out to find out how Japanese men would answer that question.

For the survey, 500 men were polled, with ages ranging from 30 to 59 in the same proportions as the general Japanese public. To start off, they were asked, “Which do you think has the bigger influence on whether or not a woman is attractive, her body type or her weight?”

Given Japan’s fairly widespread image of slenderness as a component of ideal feminine beauty, you might have guessed that many would have responded with weight being the more important of the two. In actuality, though, a mere one percent of respondents said weight was the bigger factor in whether they thought a woman looked attractive.

On the other end of the spectrum, 62 percent of the men said body type was more important to them, often citing the more direct effect is has on their perception. Many said they felt drawn to physiques that radiated a healthy, energetic aura.

“You don’t know how much someone weighs when you look at her, but you can get an idea of what sort of build she has,” explained one man. “If she has nice proportions, she’s attractive,” answered another. “In that case, even if she’s a little heavy, it doesn’t matter.”

20 percent of the survey respondents said they found weight and body type to play equally sized roles, with the remaining 17 percent saying they weren’t particularly concerned with either.

That’s not to say the men didn’t have some pretty stringent expectations about weight, however. When asked what they considered an “average” body weight for a women, 56 percent responded with a figure under 50 kilograms (110 pounds), and 43 percent of those polled gave an answer between 45 and 50 kilograms.

Meanwhile, the actual average weight for a Japanese woman in her 30s is 53.5 kilograms, and 54.7 kilograms for a woman in her 40s, both a tad above what the respondents are expecting. Still, if they’re as good as their word that that they care more about what their eyes see than what the scale says, they shouldn’t have a problem with that.

Source: Livedoor News via Otakomu