The stereotype of the Marilyn Monroesque dumb curvy blonde has been blown out of the water by scientists in the US! We like US research, as not only has it said that heavier (fit) people live longer - but now it's telling us that we are also more intelligent than our skinnier girlfriends!

I guess that's the trade off for not being able to fit into Karen Millen dresses...

A new study has found that curvy women seem to score higher on intelligence tests and even have more intelligent children than their thinner peers. Using data from a 'federally-collected database' to compare women's waist-to-hip ratio with their scores on cognitive tests, the scientists noticed that women whose waists were significantly smaller than their hips reported higher scores, as did their children.

"University of Pittsburgh and University of California at Santa Barbara researchers William Lassek and Steven Gaulin were interested in the discrepancies between fat distribution in men and women, as well as men's apparent preference for women with a bit more meat on their bones.

"If you've ever seen Playboy, you know this preference," Gaulin said. "All we're asking is, why do women have more fat [than men], why is it distributed differently and why do men care?"

The key to intelligent children, Lassek said, may lie in deposits of omega-3 fatty acids in a woman's hips and thighs. Such fats are crucial in brain development.

More omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy, the study indicates, result in better brain development and, thus, children who score higher on standardized cognitive tests.

"The effect is not huge, but the effect is statistically significant," Gaulin said. "Over the big sweep of human evolution, there was no education, there were no differences in family income. All of those other extraneous pressures would not have mattered when men's mating preferences were being shaped."

The only thing that concerns me about research like this is - who decided that it was that big a deal to everyone to research this kind of thing - and what were they actually trying to prove? But I'll just ponder on that with my HUGE female brain until I find the answers I'm looking for...

Famously "curvy" stars like Jennifer Lopez and Scarlett Johansson may have new reason to celebrate those curves: A new study suggests that curvy women score higher on intelligence tests and have more intelligent children than their thinner peers. The study used data from a federally-collected database to compare women's waist-to-hip ratio with their scores on cognitive tests. Women whose waists were significantly smaller than their hips -- traditionally "curvy" women -- reported higher scores, as did their children. University of Pittsburgh and University of California at Santa Barbara researchers William Lassek and Steven Gaulin were interested in the discrepancies between fat distribution in men and women, as well as men's apparent preference for women with a bit more meat on their bones. "If you've ever seen Playboy, you know this preference," Gaulin said. "All we're asking is, why do women have more fat [than men], why is it distributed differently and why do men care?" The key to intelligent children, Lassek said, may lie in deposits of omega-3 fatty acids in a woman's hips and thighs. Such fats are crucial in brain development. More omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy, the study indicates, result in better brain development and, thus, children who score higher on standardized cognitive tests. This isn't to say, however, that J. Lo's pending offspring will definitively be trumping Nicole Richie's little junior in the classroom. "The differences are much smaller when you look at the actual data," Penn State psychology professor Richard Carlson wrote in an e-mail. When the researchers factored out variables such as age, education and income, curvy women scored 1 to 1.5 percent higher on intelligence tests, he said. "The effect is not huge, but the effect is statistically significant," Gaulin said. "Over the big sweep of human evolution, there was no education, there were no differences in family income. All of those other extraneous pressures would not have mattered when men's mating preferences were being shaped."

Strap on your trainers and go for a brisk walk, girls. The newspapers are reporting what we all knew anyway - that even if you are fat, being fit with it helps you live longer.

The findings, described as 'striking' by the Daily Mail who were castigating obese women for dying in childbirth just yesterday. They showed that the fittest fat men and women (aged 60 and over) are more likely to live to a ripe old age than average weight or slimmer people of the same age.

This is the second recent study to fly in the face of the 'we're all doomed' message peddled by the tabloids about the obesity epidemic and for me, it definitely shifts the focus from the constant messages to lose weight onto - just stay fit!

Their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, assessed the fitness of 2,600 adults aged 60 or older and measured their BMI - and percentage body fat.

Over 12 years, 450 of the people surveyed died and it was the people with the lower fitness levels than the survivors, regardless of BMI who lived the longest.

So, go for a swim, take the dog for a walk, even dance all night...but just get moving. And sod the scales...