Rebecca Kamm: Happy relationship = better body image (+other women's studies)

Women in a happy relationship feel better about their body - study. Photo / Thinkstock

Rebecca Kamm shares the latest in ladies' studies covering body image, sexy ads and the secret skills of red heads.

Good body image = better relationship = good body image?

According to a study presented last week at the the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society's Division of Clinical Psychology - (breathe) - women who are happy in their their romantic relationships also tend to be happier with their weight, whether or not their weight could be considered "ideal".

"These findings suggest that our satisfaction with body size, shape and weight has more to do with how happy we are in important areas of our lives, like our romantic relationships, than it does with what the bathroom scales say," said the study's author, Sabina Vatter.

Well, you thiiiiiink? Nonetheless, I can relate: there's nothing like being in a healthy, happy relationship to make you feel good about yourself, etc. It's pretty chicken-eggy, though. Women who've reached an adequate level of self-esteem probably tend to be in high-quality, respectful relationships in the first place, because they know their worth and won't accept any less. (Let's all be that woman.)

Sexy ads alienate women

Finally, a study has proven what any woman plucked off the street could have told the legions of advertising creatives busy shoveling sex into ads: NUP.

Published in the journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the research found that female consumers loathe explicit advertising. Although, "this reaction to sexual imagery was mitigated if the product promoted was expensive."

So, that makes sense to me. The more luxurious the product, the more "artful" the sex is going to be - budgets are bigger and being tasteful is pretty imperative. Also, the sexy ads for cheap stuff is generally directed towards male consumers.

Alternative reason: ladies get very upset when sex isn't treated like a precious jewel, and using this sacred, special act to tout cheap crap hurts our hearts. Ha ha! But seriously, I got that from the Independent:

Kate Upton in the racy Carl Jr ad.

"Women generally show spontaneous negative attitudes toward sexual images," writes psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs, a researcher at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, and colleagues. "Sexual economics theory offers a reason why: The use of sexual imagery is inimical to women's vested interest in sex being portrayed as infrequent, special, and rare."

One thing's for sure: the MRA will dine OUT on this one.

Secret redhead skills

Women with red hair create better passwords, according to a weird study. Photo / Thinkstock

We all know choosing a snazzy password is advisable in these hacker-days. But did you know redheads are better at choosing them? According to the BBC, studies show they trump us all when it comes to making the little password-approval box fill with happy green bars. Sadly, the BBC offered roughly no theories as to why this might be the case. Possibly because they realised it's an absurd conclusion with zero nutritional life-value.

More password facts: Women prefer length and men diversity (har har). Men with "bushy beards or unkempt hair" are the worst password inventors out of everybody. And passwords are basically useless now anyway, because security researcher Yiannis Chrysanthou from KPMG cracked this one, which is not even in a different language, and was totally randomised: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".

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