I look at some of the leaner lasses on television and around town and I'm puzzled why they do that deliberately. Mind you, I understand skinny. I was not always the sturdy hunk you see before you today.

I was once the class scarecrow. Like many teenage males, I was one of those human food furnaces who burned calories faster than the nutrients could fix flesh to my bones.

That affected my love life. The girls seemed to prefer chunkier guys. I managed to date a few of the near-sighted girls. But for the most part, ultra-skinny guys were not considered the most attractive shape for girls out shopping for a boyfriend.

I now understand what was going on, both for me and for girls today who have been told the lie by the American publishing and fashion industries that skinny is the best way to go looking for a set of genes to start a family with.

When it comes to attracting men, men are a better judge than women on the whole as to what makes a woman physically attractive to a man. Consequently, it is not normally women's magazines -- published by and for women -- that are the best sources of information on how a woman might want to act and dress and look if she would make herself more attractive to men. That's because a woman advising women on what is attractive to men is like a vegetarian advising other vegetarians how to cook a steak.

It is men's magazines -- published mostly by men for men -- that have the better idea of what a woman might do to make herself more interesting to men. THose are the magazines a young woman should be looking at if she wants to know how to maximize her chances in the dating game.

The answer is pretty simple. And i don't just mean large chests and immodest dress and things like that, though I will not deny, rightly or wrongly, that is sometimes part of the mystique for a lot of men. But there is one single characteristic that looms largest of all as the reason why most women's magazines get it wrong and most men's magazines get it right:

Healthy.

What most men I know look for consciously or subconsciously as the difference between all right and better than all right in potential girlfriends and wives is a round look of health. And ultra-skinny does not convey that impression.

That's probably genetic. Men and women probably have something in their genes that drives them more toward reproducing with a healthy mate than with an unhealthy mate.

So in a choice between a nice chubby Spice Girl and a girl with her bones showing through her skin, most boys are going to look to the Spice Girl, radiating health. These are prehistoric urges and a Spice Girl looks like she could make it through a lean winter.

When it comes to mate and date shopping, the male of this species will usually err on the side of chunky, just like those girls in my high school used to prefer beefcake when looking for guys.

What we see presented as the ideal woman in this society at this time in history is not only at odds with the tastes of most men I know, but with most of the yardsticks of beauty/health in most cultures throughout history. Historically, men have looked for women with some meat on their bones.

Historically, the extreme thinness offered by the American fashion and entertainment industries has been associated with sick people and is a turnoff. So these Dachau darlings of American magazines leave girls all over America with a false impression if their aim is dating and marrying.

I was less than astonished the other day when I read about a study of girls in grades five through 12 who said magazine photos left them with the notion that they were too chubby. That included a significant number of girls who were not overweight by any stretch of a normal imagination, but thought they were. In other words, these kids are being brainwashed into doing something that will make it more difficult for them to catch the eye of someone right for them.

The American myth is that there is no such thing as too rich or too thin. And I suppose if you're rich enough, that can attract dates in its own right. But a girl who is not rich should save her money for boy's magazines -- and for ice cream.