Forget tanning: fruit and veg is the key to a truly healthy glow

Forget sunbaking and spray tans. The secret to a healthy glow lies in eating fruit and vegetables, new research reveals.

An innovative study published for the Experimental Psychology Society sheds new light on the importance of skin colour as a determiner of facial attractiveness. It also shows that carotenoid colouration has the upper hand over melanisation when it comes to the rules of attraction.

“Skin colouration can arise as a result of two distinct processes: through tanning (melanisation) or the assimilation of fruit and vegetables (carotenoid ingestion),” explains the team leading the research.

Determined to investigate the importance of skin colour in judgements of facial attractiveness, the team set out to examine the importance of high levels of these pigments (carotenoids and melanin) in attraction choices in three separate, yet linked, internet-based studies.

In the first two studies, two separate groups of 60 participants were shown 27 base faces, specifically created for the purpose of testing. Through colour manipulation, the skin area of these composite faces was altered alongside the axis of carotenoid- or melanin-associated derma colours.

High- and low-pigment versions of each face were shown in pairs to the partakers, who had to indicate which one they thought more attractive. Results from both studies showed a clear preference for strong colour values; 86% of participants in the first study voted for the high-carotenoid version, while 78.5% of the participants in the second one opted for the high-melanin variant.

In a third and final study, the team pitched 24 high-carotenoid and high-melanin faces against each other, asking attendants to choose the one deemed more appealing. Results showed a 75.9% preference for carotenoid colouring over the melanin one.

This research is the first to show strong evidence for the importance of skin colouration in attractiveness judgements. What’s more, it clearly exposes “the importance of carotenoid coloration as a cue to current health and attractiveness, [a fact that] may be pivotal in mate choices”, explains the team.

The study ‘Fruit over sunbed: Carotenoid skin coloration is found more attractive than melanin coloration’ has been published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.