The secret of a happy marriage might be nothing more complicated than the wife being slimmer than her husband.
A four-year study suggests that, in the short and long term, both partners are more contented if the woman has a lower Body Mass Index（BMI），which is calculated from height and weight and used as a measure of obesity.
The study from the University of Tennessee selected 169 married couples aged under 35 and asked them to fill in questionnaires every six months.
They discovered that men who had a higher BMI were happier at the start of their marriage and stayed that way.
The same effect was true for the women -wives with a lower BMI than their husbands were significantly happier.
The study could perhaps shed new light on the break-up of Jennifer Lopez and her husband Marc Anthony, who is noticeably thinner than his wife.
While David Beckham and his ever-slender wife Victoria also show no sign of losing the shine from their union 11 years after the event.
But why weight matters so much?
One idea is that attractiveness and weight are more important to men. We see this emerging at the beginning of the marriage for husbands, and their dissatisfaction might be affecting wives'satisfaction over time.
Lead author Andrea Meltzer said: "Women of any size can be happy in their relationships with the right partner. It's relative weight that matters, not absolute weight. It's not that they have to be small."


据英国《每日邮报》7月18日报道：婚姻幸福的秘诀或许比我们想象中要简单得的多--只需要妻子比丈夫苗条一些。
一项为期四年的研究表明，无论是从长期还是从短期来看，妻子的身高体重比例指数低于丈夫，夫妻双方都会感到更满足。身高体重比例指数按照身高与体重计算得出，被用来作为检验肥胖的标准。

有169对35岁以下的夫妻参与了田纳西大学的此项研究，他们每半年需要填写一次调查问卷。


研究发现身高体重比例指数比妻子高的男性从结婚开始就一直比较幸福。

女性也一样，身体质量指数较丈夫更低的妻子明显更幸福。

这项研究或许能够为詹妮佛•洛佩茨与马克•安东尼的离婚提供新的解释，马克明显比他妻子瘦很多。

而大卫•贝克汉姆与他始终苗条的妻子维多利亚结婚11年依然恩爱如初。

那么体重为什么会这么重要呢？

一种观点认为，丈夫更在意妻子的魅力与体重。可以看出，丈夫从结婚就开始注重这点了。久而久之，男性对伴侣身材的不满可能就会影响到妻子对婚姻的满足感。

该研究的领导者安德里亚•梅尔泽说："在婚姻关系中，只要找对了伴侣，任何体型的女性都可以得到幸福。因为衡量的标准是男女之间的相对体重而不是女性个体的绝对体重。所以，这并不需要女性都要变得瘦小。"

• complicated [´kɔmplikeitid] a.结构复杂的；难懂的 (初中英语单词)
• height [hait] n.高度；顶点；卓越 (初中英语单词)
• measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
• beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
• partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
• relative [´relətiv] a.有关系的 n.亲属 (初中英语单词)
• absolute [´æbsəlu:t] a.绝对的 n.绝对 (初中英语单词)
• contented [kən´tentid] a.满足的；心满意足的 (高中英语单词)
• noticeably [´nəutisəbli] ad.显著地，显然 (英语六级单词)
• dissatisfaction [di,sætis´fækʃən] n.不满 (英语六级单词)