The concept of the “dad bod” entered our cultural lexicon around 2015. One of the earliest confirmed uses of the term is in the now viral essay Why Girls Love the Dad Bod by Mackenzie Pearson. And we seem to have been arguing about this ever since. Do women really love a dad bod? The debate is split between the women who say “yes, we do,” and a whole bunch of other people (mostly muscly men) who simply refuse to believe them. It’s maddening.
The pushback started early. In direct response to Pearson’s 2015 article, Dr Ryan Anderson wrote a piece for Psychology Today where he argued, “the science just isn’t with her here. And what’s more, it doesn’t make biological sense.” He felt that Pearson was wrong in her own preference because “the ‘dad bod’ is unhealthy and unattractive.”
Bill Phillips, writing for Men’s Health, was utterly incredulous at Pearson’s article and wrote, “surveys note that young women also prize walks on the beach and being kind to puppies. But none of it means they’ll ignore the biological imperatives when selecting mates, whether it’s for one night or for a lifetime.” Given that so much of the resistance to dad bod appreciation is grounded in a pseudo-biological argument, I thought I would put on my academic hat and try to get to the ample bottom of the issue.
I am a huge admirer of the dad bod, which is clearly bizarre and makes no “biological sense”. With all the cultural conditioning around men’s bodies and the (checks notes) “biological imperatives” at work, shouldn’t I be appalled by anything less than an Adonis?
And yet, the mere thought of Matt Berry turns me absolutely feral. Like most women I know, I would take Jack Black over any gym bro any day of the week. So, what’s going on? Am I lying to myself? Have I broken my programming? Am I a bizarre outlier? A biological conundrum? I don’t think so. Mind you, my lady brain also likes beach walks and being kind to puppies, so that might disqualify me from having any kind of opinion on this.
If I was going to design a serious research project to finally answer the question “do women find the dad bod attractive,” the very first thing I would do would be to redraft the preposition. The question is far too absolute to yield any meaningful data. Women are not a homogeneous group, so we will have to work with percentages, ie, some women find the dad bod attractive, and some don’t. That statement really should be enough to put the issue to bed once and for all: some do, and some don’t. And yet my TikTok timeline is teeming with so called “alpha males,” who can’t believe any woman could find a man who didn’t look like them desirable. The “alpha crowd” are usually muscle-bound, hyper masculine, Andrew Tate worshipping men who talk about women like they are prey.
The issue then becomes how much of a percentage would be considered acceptable to the DB deniers to prove that a squishy physique can be a thing of beauty? A 40 per cent result for the chubby lovers would be considered “significant” in scientific terms, while anything less than 10 per cent could be argued to be an unusual, but not uncommon preference. So, maybe the question needs to be: “do you identify as a woman, and, expressed as a percentage, how attractive do you find dad bods?”
Then we will need to define what we mean by a “dad bod” to standardise our results. This is actually quite tricky because there are no strict definitions of what constitutes as a dad bod. If we are being absolute purists, a dad bod is any dad with a bod, and the question isn’t about finding dads in general attractive. Does a dad bod mean a body that would be regarded as medically obese, or does it mean a body that just isn’t super ripped?
In truth, it can mean either of those things and everything in between. I’ve seen the word used to describe a wide variety of bodies, ranging from the lean-but-not-defined, through to the barrel chested, and beyond. It seems much easier to say what isn’t, rather than what is, a dad bod. I mean, If Jason Momoa can be told he has a dad bod, does the term hold any meaning at all? I absolutely despaired of the online trolling Jason’s body attracted when he hit the beach back in 2019 with a slightly softer frame than he had when he was undergoing the gruelling training required to play a DC superhero. He still had a six pack, for goodness’ sake! Are we now just saying that anyone who doesn’t look like Aquaman has a dad bod, including the guy who played Aquaman? That is an impossible standard. So, the question needs to be refined again to “do you identify as a woman and, expressed as percentage, how attractive do you find men who aren’t Aquaman?”
Then, I would address the heteronormativity at work here. Why is the question always “do women find dad bods attractive”? What about the gays and theys? They shouldn’t be left out of this. In fact, they’re the pioneers! The gay community has been celebrating and loving bigger bodied “bears” and “daddies” since day dot. Where are the Men’s Health articles telling them that they are mistaken because they like puppies? For goodness sake, the International Bear Brotherhood have had their own flag since 1995, and the straights are still messing about, doubting the possibility that a larger boy body could have its fans.
So, now my question needs to be something like, “are you a human being who is attracted to fellow humans who identify as male, and don’t look exactly like Aquaman?” Hmmmm. My research premise seems to be falling apart quite quickly, and it’s hardly surprising. There is no methodology to adequately answer this question because there are so many variables, though this hasn’t stopped people from trying.
Every once in a while, a survey is released that claims to have the answer, but they aren’t generally peer reviewed and usually have an agenda. For example, Dating.com published a survey which found “almost 75 per cent of single people prefer ‘dad bods”. Planet Fitness published another one claiming that “nearly seven in 10 women (69 per cent) find dad bods attractive.” I like that these surveys often come back with positive results, but we still need to acknowledge the methodology is flawed.
A very simple test would be to show a group of people a series of images of various body types and ask them to rank them in order of attractiveness. This has been done many times, but only ever captures so much. All a test like that is doing is tracking cultural ideals. We’ve all been conditioned to know what a “good body” looks like. We easily can pick that out of a line up, but that’s only one quantifiable metric of a person’s attractiveness. Perhaps the question shouldn’t be “do you find dad bods attractive,” but rather, “have you found a man with a dad bod attractive?” That’s much more revealing.
I don’t fancy Matt Berry or Jack Black just because they have some junk in the trunk, it’s much more holistic than that. It’s the whole package: the charisma, the charm, the confidence. All of it. I can’t pretend to understand the vagaries of sexual attraction, especially for women, but I know it’s about so much more than what you see. Don’t get me wrong, a conventionally beautiful man is a thing of wonder, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for anything else. And it definitely doesn’t mean that there aren’t qualities that are even more attractive than a six pack you could slice salami with.
I am so attracted to charming and funny; I can’t even tell you. It really doesn’t matter what body shape someone has, if they are charming and funny, I’m smitten. By the same token, it doesn’t matter how perfect someone’s body may be – if they are being a douche, I am not attracted to them. I am genuinely baffled as to why some people find that concept so hard to believe.
Perhaps it’s because standards of male beauty are so rigid. Either you are 6ft tall and so ripped we can see your insides, or you’re not. The body positivity movement has started to do some wonderful things for women, but I’m not so sure we have created the same space for men just yet. I’ve seen some incredible advertising campaigns that show off all kinds of womanly bodies, but I’ve yet to see the same thing done for men on the same scale. I mean, can you name any plus sized male models? Me neither. So, is it any wonder that there are people out there who refuse to accept that big boy bods can be beautiful?
The debate over whether women are attracted to dad bods will doubtlessly rumble on, in no small part because of the people who refuse to believe the answer women give them. For me, this is the most interesting part of the whole thing. Why do some people, and by “people” I mean men, utterly refuse to believe what women tell them? Is it just good old-fashioned misogyny and the casual dismissal of women as silly, puppy loving, beach dwellers? Or is it, maybe, that the question is being directed to the wrong people? Perhaps the call has been coming from inside the house all along?
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many women (and men) confirm that they are attracted to male bodies in all shapes and sizes, because it’s not women who hate the dad bod – it’s men.
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