Mature people know that there is a lot more to attraction than being physically attractive. Personality, passion and social skills count just as much, maybe more. But for those of you who are insecure in your looks and want to be physically attractive to girls, read on to see how it’s a lot easier than you think. According to science pretty much anyone can be attractive without spending a fortune on cosmetic surgery or crazy gym-diet based body transformations.

Mehrabian and Blum (1997) researched what features make a person attractive to the opposite sex. Their results are a revelation to anyone that has ever worried about their looks.

They researched the relationship between changeable features like hairstyles and grooming, and unchangeable features like height and body type.

The good news is they found that the biggest factors that make a person attractive are all easily changeable. It’s fair to say that we’re as attractive as we want to be.

Their amazing finding shows that most attractive feature in a person falls under the “self-care” category. These are features that are super easy to change. It includes things like good grooming, having neat hair, clothes that fit well and are of good quality, having good posture and a healthy weight.

Basically, that means that the most physically attractive quality a man or woman can have is showing that they make some effort in their looks.

What Mehrabian and Blum called “masculinity” was only one third as important as self care. This including things like a bigger jaw, height, width of your shoulders and your muscularity.

Finally they also found that features they called “pleasantness” were somewhat important to how physically attractive you are. This included things like smiling, looking happy, friendly and positive.

Using this information we can create a cheat sheet on how to make ourselves as physically attractive to girls as possible.

How to be physically attractive

Grooming

• Always be clean. You should be freshly showered and wash your hair regularly.
• Cut your nails and hair regularly.
• Make sure your hair is always neat and styled
• Take care of excess body hair
• Make sure your clothes are always clean, ironed and don’t look shabby.
• Brush your teeth and take good care of your skin.

Posture

• Stand up straight
• Sit up straight
• Put your shoulders back and don’t be ashamed of who you are
• Get used to standing tall. Girls find this makes you look confident and having a good posture will make you look much more attractive with barely any effort and certainly no cost.

Healthy weight

The science says that perfect abs and giant muscles are just not that important to physical attraction. But it is important to look healthy and be a healthy weight. You don’t need to spend hours in the gym or take up some extreme diet and nutrition program. Just do a little exercise to keep fit and eat a healthy, balanced diet. Obesity is not attractive so you might need to put some effort in to lose that beer belly, but you don’t need to go crazy.

Clothing

Make sure clothes fit well and suit your body shape. You need to invest effort in this. Buy magazines, research online, and try things on. If you need help, don’t be scared of asking for it. Ask a female friend or family member to help you, ask a shop assistant or even hire a local stylist for a consultation.

Mehrabian and Blum also found clothing needs to be good quality. It’s better to buy fewer items but better quality. Remember, expensive brands don’t’ always equal higher quality, just check what material percentages your clothes are made from.

Generally, girls favour a more formal look. That doesn’t mean you need to wear a suit every day, just don’t look scruffy or chronically under-dressed.

Pleasantness

• Smile more, say yes more.
• Say hello to people and ask how they are, even strangers.
• Make happiness, enthusiasm and a sunny outlook become second nature.
• Try to avoid saying no or thinking the worst.
• This stuff is only a somewhat important when it comes to physical attraction but it sure as hell will make people want to spend more time around you!

Masculinity

OK so you can’t change your height or body shape that easily and this category isn’t so important anyway. But if you are self-conscious about your masculinity, spend extra time in the gym to build some muscle and consider growing some facial hair if you have a weak jaw and you will be the full-package.