On a recent trip to the Bahamas, pop megastar Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chief tight end Travis Kelce, were photographed walking hand in hand on the beach.
Commentators were quick to notice Kelce’s soft belly and awarded him the honorable title of ‘Dad Bod.’
The term covers a wide range of body types, but generally refers to men with fuller, smoother bodies, which are strong but not necessarily muscular.
They can range from athletes like Kelce to actors like Adam Sandler.
And the body has had a recent surge in popularity among young women.
A 2021 survey from Dating.com found that 75 percent of single people were fans of the dad bod.
Now, researchers have revealed the scientific reason why women like Swift find this body so attractive.
Swift and Kelce were spotted walking on the beach in the Bahamas during their vacation after the singer wrapped up her concert series in Singapore.
According to psychologist Joel Wade, a presidential professor at Bucknell University, this conveys to potential partners that a man is a safe paternal choice to nest with, he wrote for Psychology Today.
It’s not the father body itself that attracts women, but what it represents, according to evolutionary psychologist James Sherlock of the University of Queenslandwrote.
Kelce helped the Chief secure a SuperBowl victory in 2024
For women who are attracted to physicality, they may find this indicates a partner with a balanced family lifestyle and softer personality traits, Simon Clay, a sociologist at the University of New South Wales, wrote.
He said: “Slightly ‘chubby’ men may have less testosterone and therefore take fewer risks and therefore be better fathers.”
High testosterone levels have been associated with greater aggression and risk-taking in men, say neuroscientists at Trinity College Dublin is located.
Seeing a less toned body could be a subconscious signal to a partner that a man is more relaxed in his surroundings and comfortable sitting down, Clay added.
Essentially, the time it takes to maintain a six-pack could reduce the time a man spends at home with his family.
Therefore, a softer body may indicate a greater willingness to spend time at home.
Clay also wrote that popular culture could have an impact on women’s perception of the dad bod. With the rise of celebrity beach photos, people have been seeing their favorite artists, from Leonardo DiCaprio to John Hamm, sporting softer silhouettes.
“The sexualized commodification and subjectification of the soft, half-naked body of male celebrities helped make the Dad Bod culturally legible,” Clay wrote.
Many men with dad bods have great athletic ability. Kelce’s teammate, quarterback Patrick Mahomes, also got caught up on the dad bod train in early 2024.
Basically, it means that when people see that a celebrity they admire has a smoother body, then they may start looking elsewhere, Clay said.
But in all, Wade said there’s no science on whether or not women feel pure physical attraction to dad bods.
He cited a study in which psychologists tested the attractiveness of men based solely on their bodies and found that women rated more muscular men, with shoulders considerably wider than their torsos, as more attractive than men with similar body types. softer.
However, that same study found that women said that people with dad bods seemed more affectionate, loving, friendly, and likely to be better potential fathers.