Women can "smell" thin to men - Aroma - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), June, 2003

A decade-long study conducted by the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago found that men perceived women to be 12 pounds lighter when they were wearing a pleasant, floral-spicy perfume. Alan R. Hirsch, lead investigator, explains that "We didn't actually reduce the weight of women who wore the aroma, but, rather, caused men to believe she weighed less."

After testing of over 100 different odor combinations including butterscotch, cigarette smoke, grapefruit, and pepperoni pizza, the floral-spice combination was the only odor found to work. "It acts as the olfactory equivalent to vertical lines," says Hirsch, noting the visual illusion of reduced girth while wearing a blouse designed with up-and-down stripes. "In earlier studies, we found that sniffing the odors of green apple, banana, and peppermint caused a 30-pound weight loss over six months, but people wanted something that worked even faster."

Implications of these findings are more than just what to wear before going out on a date. The Foundation is looking at whether the same odor can be used to help self-perception of body size in teenagers with anorexia nervosa. While this aroma reduced men's view of a woman's weight, the scientists could not find any odor that influenced a woman's ability to estimate weight. "Either women are too adroit at guessing other people's weight or men are just easily influenced by how a woman smells," Hirsch speculates.