Health: Mood News.

Beauty and Longevity

Look good, live longer: A small Canadian study suggests this direct correlation. Twenty men and women rated the high-school-yearbook graduation photos of 50 people born in the 1920s, assessing their looks and perceived health. When psychology researchers Joshua Henderson and Jeremy Anglin of the University of Waterloo compared the ratings with death records, they found that those with the best scores on looks survived the longest. The dozen men at the top of the attractiveness ratings lived 76 years on average, while the 12 with the lowest ratings lived 69 years. The 12 women with the highest ratings also lived to an average age of 76, versus 73 for those with the lowest scores. The results jibe with the evolutionary theory that attractiveness in one's reproductive years is associated with health and healthy genes, Henderson says.

Sorority Pounds

College women who join sororities are no different in their body-weight or eating issues than women who don't join them -- at first. That changes over time, say researchers from the universities of Pennsylvania and Connecticut. They tracked 102 women at a midwestern university during their first three years, surveying them annually about their weight, mood, body image, self-esteem, and eating habits. All the women averaged about the same body-mass index before the sorority pledge period, but by junior year the sorority members had put on nearly five pounds, while those who never joined had gained about a pound and a half. The sorority sisters also reported more preoccupation with weight and dieting than the nonjoiners did. These findings may relate ...