What is Sexy?

Originally done in 2015.  Updated December 7, 2025.

There have been several report on how our society has been changing it's ideal of attractive / sexy over the years.  More than one lady I have know, have been concerned that they were "Fat" or not sexy because they didn't look like the models.  Back in 2009 Wired Magazine did an article titled Infoporn: Today's Playmates Are More Like Anime Figures Than Real Humans  that looked at how Playboy Playmate's Body Mass Index (BMI) had changed over the years.  They showed a steady decrease in the Playmate's BMI.  The CDC defines a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is healthy.  25 and over is overweight and under 18.5 is underweight.

So I took the data and updated using the data from WeKinglyPigs.  Note Playboy stopped having Playmates in February 2016.  Spreadsheet of data is below.  There were 694 Playmates that information could be found to calculate BMI.

Here is what I found:

Bad News

• 52% of the playmates were underweight!  BMI <18.5

• 0.9% (6 of the 694) were severely underweight with a BMI under 16.  Ms. Sept 2013, who was 5'3" and weighted 85 pounds, had a BMI of 15.1

• Only 1 playmate was "overweight" with a BMI of 25.4.  Ms. January 2015 who was five foot tall and 130 pounds.

• The median BMI dropped below 18.5, aka underweight, in 1968 and stayed there until 2003.

• There was a decreasing trend from 1953 - 1987 at a rate of 0.07 BMI per year.  See graph below.

• Only 2010 had over 75% of the BMIs in the healthy range.  Before that you have to go back to 1970.

Good News

• The trend started to go upward around 1987 but very slowly at a rate of 0.02 BMI per year (it decreased at  a rate over twice that before).

• Some of the ladies that have been considered sex symbols were in the healthy range.  Here are some examples: