According to a new research, males prefer females having smaller-than-average feet - though they might not be aware of it.

Jeremy Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist at the University at Albany, New York, and his fellow worker Michelle Rowe assessed hand length, foot length, thigh length and hip width on 60 white female college pupils, and then make adjustments to each measurement to account for individual differences in total height.

For each of 16 body-part measurements, they picked the eight females having the shortest lengths and the eight with the longest, and constructed morphs of their faces.

These morphs were then rated for good looks by 77 heterosexual male pupils.

The researchers discovered that males were three-and-a-half times as likely to pick the short-footed morph as more appealing, and almost 10 times as likely to say it was more womanly.

Likewise, they were over 11 times as likely to choose the narrow-hipped morph as more beautiful, and eight times as likely to select the long-thighed morph.

Atkinson thinks that males find these features appealing as because they serve as markers of a healthy childhood.

Biologists know that tension and poor nutrition during growth of foetal and puberty can have effect on the levels of sex hormone and result in earlier puberty.

This can leave such female relatively short and stout, whereas those with a more benign childhood continue growing for longer, and attain a slimmer, more stereotypically feminine face as well as body that the majority of males find more appealing.

The results of the study were reported at a meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in Eugene, Oregon. (With Inputs from Agencies)