"The hormonal profile associated with high WHR may favor success in resource competition, particularly under stressful circumstances," writes Cashdan. "The androgenic effects — stamina, initiative, risk-proneness, assertiveness, dominance — should be particularly useful where a woman must depend on her own resources to support herself and her family."

In Japan, Greece and Portugal, where women tend to be less economically independent, men place a higher value on a thin waist than men in Britain or Denmark, where there tends to be more sexual equality, she said.

"Waist-to-hip ratio may indeed be a useful signal to men," she said. "Whether men prefer a (waist-to-hip ratio) associated with lower or higher androgen/estrogen ratios — or value them equally — should depend on the degree to which they want their mates to be strong, tough, economically successful and politically competitive."

Then again, from a woman's point of view, "men's preferences are not the only thing that matters," Cashdan said.

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E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com