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A new study has found that marriages are happier when wives are thinner than their husbands. It seems that men married to women with lower BMIs are happier in their marriage. And the same applies to women, too. Thinner wives are more content with married life over time than overweight women. Researchers say that this is because when one partner is happy, the other is too.

Happier husbands…

Researchers from the University of Tennessee studied the BMI of almost 170 newlywed couples, looking into the way weight influenced the happiness of the couples. Andrea Meltzer, who led the product, said via Discovery News that her team found ‘this effect initially on husbands’ satisfaction at the beginning of marriage… husbands were more satisfied at the time of marriage to the extent that their wives had a lower BMI than themselves.’

…mean happier wives

‘Wives are happier to the extent that their husbands are happy,’ said Meltzer. ‘If we were looking at another quality that was more important to women than men – say, economic resources – we might see opposite effects. Women might be more satisfied to the extent that their partners are making more money than they are.’

As long as your partner is bigger

Meltzer says that the new findings are important as we now know women of any size can have happy relationships – as long as they’re thinner than their partners. ‘It’s not necessarily striving for thinness per se, but striving to be thinner than their partner,’ Meltzer explains.

She adds that overweight women (which most British women are) should choose heavier husbands if they want a good marriage. Alternatively, she suggests dating an average-sized man and losing a few pounds so you’re thinner by comparison.

Meltzer noted that ‘Couples are more satisfied to the extent that their partner is healthy. Thinner women will, on average, be healthier than overweight or obese ones, thus improving the marriage for both partners.’

Tags: Keeping Healthy, relationships, weight loss