I was reading an article the other day about "chubby chasers." Basically, it was about men who have a "fetish" for heavy women. The article talked about how they hooked up sensors to read the brain activities of average men who claimed to like slim women and men who said they preferred large women. They showed both groups of men photos of women of varying sizes and asked them to rank which women they preferred the most as well as read their brain activity to see if it matched what they said.

This is the discouraging part for me - they said that the men who were "chubby chasers" most often preferred women with a BMI of.....29! My BMI is around 28! I thought for sure they would be going for BMIs in the 30s or 40s...is a BMI of 29 really so freakishly large that it's considered a fetish to be attracted to someone in that range? Yikes!

Here is the second discouraging part - the average men in the study most favored women with a BMI of....18! For me, I would have to get to 110lbs to be in that range! A BMI of 18 is slightly underweight for most women, yet that was the preferred body range for the average man!

I guess it's true that we have to lose weight to please ourselves and decide on our own what is healthy and attractive. Otherwise we can drive ourselves crazy trying to please a man, our mom, our friends, etc...

I saw a show similar to that several years ago, I forget what these men were called ( (fat seekers, maybe ) but they definitely had a fetish for larger women. I mean 300-400 pounds and the men were all very small. They had several couples of these odd pairings. This is not normal for most men.

I figure I wouldn't want to end up married to a 'chubby chaser' anyway!!

I think REAL men love you for you, and that won't change whether you gain or lose 50 pounds either direction. They will just want you to be healthy so they can have you around longer

lots of things attract a man. sometimes a person can be gorgeous, but his personality can be a turn off, so I don't know if I'd put too much stock into that

Meh, ignore all that hogwash. It all goes down the toilet when they meet the right woman, anyway! Love is blind, when it all comes down to it . My husband has loved me fat and he's loved me 'thin'. His exgirlfriend weighed 98 lbs soaking wet and I assumed he always preferred that. We had a discussion about it once and how women look really isn't as much of a factor to him and his friends as how the women make them feel. Chemistry is a lot more than what people find visually attractive. First impressions only take you so far.

Get yourself healthy and the rest will fall into place!

Some of these articles are nothing but a bunch of malarky, and resemble nothing of reality. It's all very subjective -- what a man says he likes in a photo, doesn't show a range of favor; and often is not what he seeks or has in real life, so these studies are skewed ...

I have met many couples where the man is normal weight & the wife is large (or visa-versa; including myself); and the man does not have a fetish!!! He's just a nice guy who loves his wife/partner for the many good qualities they have. Weight is not as important to them as personality, sense of humor & fun, kindness, friendship, chemistry, temperment, and talents, etc.