Study reveals what women’s ideal height is for a man to be

Anyone who's spent just five minutes on any dating app nowadays will know that the scene is filled with a whole bunch of different preferences.

From age-range to fashion choices - many singletons have a list of qualities they find desirable when it comes to finding the right person to hunker down with.

Now, whether you're into a six-foot suitor or a short king - there's a now an actual study that uses science itself to answer the age-old question: what is the ideal height of men for women?

Remember that people are more than a bullet-point list of physical attributes and while height is clearly not the be all and end all - it is definitely an interesting dating phenomenon to look into.

Now - let's get into the nitty gritty.

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The study, which was published in Frontiers in Psychology, saw researchers investigate personal preferences for height in romantic partners.

They found that women and men have quite varying height expectations.

The study in question saw a sample size of more than 500 people aged between 15 and 77, from Cuba, Canada, the United States, and Norway with 93 percent of those surveyed saying they preferred to date partners of the opposite sex.

People were measured and then asked what they would look for in a partner for both a short-term and long-term relationship.

The study was based on line drawings of men and women with their heights stated, with the participants then choosing their preferred height for a partner of either sex.

So - what were the results?

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Well, drum roll please, the average ideal height the female participants wanted male partners to be was five feet and 11 inches, while for men, the ideal height for female partners was five feet five inches.

Or, if you prefer the metric system, 180 and 165 centimetres respectively.

The results show men preferred women who are shorter than them, specifically 2.5 centimetres - or about an inch - shorter than the average height for women in their countries.

They also wanted shorter women for short-term relationships, while they preferred long-term partners to be slightly taller.

Contrastingly, women wanted their men to be taller than them, and 2.3 centimetres, or 0.9 inches, taller than the average height for men. in their country.

"These results provide preliminary evidence that, in addition to mate preferences for other physical traits related to mate quality such as masculinity in the body, face, and voice, assortative preferences for height do vary as a function of expected relationship length, but this was surprisingly only observed in preferences for female height," researchers wrote.

While the study is fascinating, it is worth noting that it clearly has its limitations - what with the relatively small sample size, the lack of diversity of countries asked, the fact the majority of those surveyed identified as heterosexual and that those in States self-reported their heights online.

And we all know someone who's fibbed about their height before.

Topics: Life, Science, Sex and Relationships

Rhiannon Ingle

Rhiannon Ingle is a Journalist at LADbible Group. She graduated from the University of Manchester in 2021 in English Literature. Alongside her studies, she was the Lifestyle Editor of The Mancunian, the largest student newspaper in the United Kingdom. Her favourite topics to write about include sex and relationships, bizarre lifestyle trends and all things travel.