Avatars Help to 'Breed' The Perfect Body

KOMPAS.com - Thousands of men and women from around the world have come forward to take part in an experimental Sydney-based sex project that aims to "breed" the ideal body.

An "avalanche" of volunteers from Afghanistan to Belarus have taken part in the study in recent weeks by rating the attractiveness of computer-generated avatars representing male and female bodies of every shape and size.

The main aim of the University of NSW project is to understand how individual features of the human body influence attractiveness.

To determine the perfect body shape, the least popular body types will slowly be culled, as the researchers attempt to virtually "breed" new body shapes from the existing avatars.

With more than 11,000 responses in just a few weeks, researchers believe they might be able to halve the time planned to complete the project.

"We initially intended to take a year, but if the visit rate keeps growing like this we will be done in six to eight months," Professor Rob Brooks said.

Researchers plan to work through six or more generations of avatars to narrow down the ideal body.

"We are about to launch generation two of male bodies and as soon as we can after that we will launch generation three of the females," Brooks said.

Brooks, who has a special interest in sexual selection, sexual competition and mate choice, said that, although experts talk about measures such as body mass index or waist-hip ratio, researchers know surprisingly little about attractiveness in a scientific sense.

"But obviously there's a whole lot more to attractiveness than numbers - people are attracted by a whole package of things," he said.