Faces are said to glow with a touch of sun and a
touch of tan. But faces can also glow from pregnancy, and high levels of
carotenoid. In humans, carotenoid comes from an intake of fruit and vegetables.
Researchers wanted to see what type of facial glow
was more attractive to other people (Wellbeing No. 154, 2014; wellbeing.com.au
– Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology). They conducted three experiments.
The first experiment involved people looking at
images of faces that had a glow from an intake of high levels of carotenoids
from fruit and vegetables and compared them with images of faces of people with
low carotenoid levels. The best-known carotenoid is carotene found in crude
palm oil, carrots and apricots (which gives them their bright orange colour).
Hence images were of people who had increased their intake of carrots and
apricots, and those who had not had a high intake of fruit and vegetables. People
were asked to indicate which faces were attractive. The result was that 86% of
people rated the high-carotenoid faces as more attractive.
The second experiment involved people looking at
images of faces with high melanin pigmentation (skin tan) and compared them
with images of faces with low melanin pigmentation (no tan). People were asked
to indicate which faces were attractive. The result was that 78.5% of people
rated the high melanin pigmentation – tanned faces – as more attractive.
The third experiment was a comparison of images of
faces with high carotenoid levels against high melanin pigmentation faces (i.e.
a comparison of faces that glow due to high fruit and vegetable intake with
images of tanned faces). People were asked to indicate which faces were
attractive. The result was that 75.9% of people rated the high carotenoid faces
as more attractive than the tanned faces.
The researchers concluded that eating more carrots
and apricots is more likely to produce a healthy facial glow that other people
would find attractive. What they don’t add is that an excess of carrots can
also produce an orange appearance, and too much sun can produce sunburn, so how
much is enough and how much is too much?
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