TY  - JOUR
AU  - Goldman, David
AU  - Nagra, Matthew
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/22
TI  - The Role of Plant-Forward Diets in Physical Attractiveness: Integrating Facial, Olfactory, and Morphological Signals for Health Behavior Change
JO  - Recent Progress in Nutrition
SP  - 010
VL  - 06
IS  - 02
AB  - Traditional public health messaging prioritizes disease prevention, whereas individual motivations for dietary change frequently focus on appearance and social outcomes. Physical attractiveness functions as a multimodal signal, combining facial appearance, body odor, and body composition. Evolutionary models posit that such cues communicate fitness-relevant information regarding health status. This narrative review integrates empirical evidence linking plant-forward dietary patterns to facial attractiveness, body odor quality, and adiposity. It examines the mechanisms underlying these associations and their implications for health promotion strategies. Literature searches identified peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2025 that investigated relationships between dietary patterns and appearance-related outcomes, including facial attractiveness, skin coloration, body odor, and body composition in adult populations. Evidence from experimental, observational, and cross-cultural research indicates that diet influences attractiveness through multiple pathways. Increased intake of carotenoid-rich fruits and vegetables enhances facial skin coloration and perceived health within weeks. Glycemic load impacts attractiveness through mechanisms such as perceived age and sexual dimorphism. Dietary composition affects body odor pleasantness by altering sweat chemistry and microbial metabolism. Plant-based dietary patterns support achieving adiposity levels associated with peak attractiveness. These modalities operate on distinct temporal scales and provide partially independent information, consistent with multiple-message models of sexual signaling. Diet is a modifiable determinant of socially salient appearance cues. Appearance-based feedback has been hypothesized to promote dietary behavior change by delivering prompt and personally relevant reinforcement, though this pathway requires further empirical evaluation. Presenting dietary recommendations in terms of visible outcomes may complement traditional health messaging by aligning individual motivations with public health objectives.
SN  - 2771-9871
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/rpn.2602010
DO  - 10.21926/rpn.2602010
ID  - Goldman2026
ER  -