Women with wide hips and a low waist-hip ratio have been shown in a study to be smarter and have smarter kids. William Lassek at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Steven Gaulin of the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that curvy women consistently outscored their skinny counterparts in cognition tests, and also that a child's cognitive performance was directly linked to their mother's waist-hip ratio. The study was based on data of more than 16,000 women from the US National Center for Health Statistics.

Children whose mothers had wide hips and a low waist-hip ratio scored highest, leading Lassek and Gaulin to suggest that fetuses benefit from hip fat that contains polyunsaturated fatty acids critical for the development of the fetus's brain. The findings were published by Evolution and Human Behavior scientific journal.

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