51% of men in favour of having weight filters on dating apps

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theres an article in the guardian today following Tinders decision to add in height filters as a premium feature. Quite a few men are upset saying it is going to make dating harder (despite the stats saying many routinely lie about their height anyway).

But what shocked me, was that 51% of men were in favour of a weight filter. Presumably in their heads they all have such great physiques that a weight filter wouldn’t negatively impact their prospects 🤣. But I was genuinely shocked, I really didn’t think the numbers behind weight was a big deal (obviously body type-yes. But not to be able to say she’s over 10stone so that’s a no!)

I don’t see the problem. Men and women can, and will/would utilize both filters (on the flip side of women rejecting short men, is men rejecting tall women).

Physical attraction is not unimportant, and dating is not an equal opportunity endeavor.

I’m a little overweight (size14. BMI 27) I wouldn’t mind being filtered out by someone not interested in me because of that.

In all honesty I don’t really fancy overweight men or skinny men or shorter than me so under 6 ft men.

I do think weight sits differently on people though so the 20 stone bloke might have massive shoulders and thighs and have that I used to play rugby vibe. Or maybe be a ball of lard so it’s hard to judge by weight alone.

I'm not talking about you now, but this kinda reminded me of something. I'm obese (working in it) and ive noticed that people irl seem to he quite suprised by it. Obese people are portrayed a lot bigger than where obesity actually starts and it is not as limiting as people might assume (obviosuly depends what activities we talk about). But obviously people dont have to be attracted to obese people and that's all fine.

If they got one they would probably not like it. They would probably filter out all the woman with big boobs. Let em have it.

Surely the majority on this thread aren't shallow wankers just because they're not initially attracted to fat men?

If people put decent up to date pictures on their profile there would be no need for this.

I haven’t done a dating app in 30 years but I think a “would you rather a) or b) type question would be good.

ie would you rather a) overweight or b) over £50k income.
So people can prioritise and not miss out someone because of something that is less important than something else.

I don't understand what you are not understanding? A lot of men find overweight/obese women unattractive and don't want to waste time looking for someone they do like.

It's more about ruling out people they have no interest in rather than looking for a very particular body type within the normal weight category.

A lot of men might prefer a slim but curvy woman to a slender woman with no curves, but would still be happy enough to date either. But a lot of men won't want to date obese women regardless of whether they are very traditionally curvy or some other body shape.

I agree with others - people are allowed to have preferences and a filter would help rule out people who were never going to be a good match. I would find it distasteful if someone wrote "No fatties" on their bio, but a discreet filter doesn't cause any harm.

When I was OLD I made sure to put a full length pic as well as face shots and said “don’t message if you’re not ok with plus size, look at my pics first and swipe left if you don’t like the last one”.

Seemed to filter out those for whom its an issue, and I would double check that anyone I was chatting to had seen it all before going further. Had plenty of dates, nobody seemed put off by me being fat, and I ended up dating men from 5’3” and very overweight to my current 6’4 super skinny DP, so I’m not fussy about body shape either!

What men want v what they'll take are 2 very different things. What they'll take....they probably don't utilise very many of the filters for.

Don’t worry about your son. Plenty of women are fine with shorter men - I’m always trying to convince my two friends who are very picky about height that they need to open their minds a bit, but tbh they’d both be a nightmare to date so he’d be dodging a bullet with them!

I have two sons and the shorter one has no issues attracting lovely women. The taller one seems to get involved with the wrong types, and I wonder if that’s because they’re not looking for a cuddly softie, they think because he’s tall and goes to the gym that he’ll be a certain type, but he isn’t!

Were women asked that question too? Because I can't see what % of women would also want one.

I've never dated online so maybe this exists already but it would be helpful if you could leave feedback!

5* - good date, not the right fit
1* - late, rude and lied on profile.

Eta, it would be useful to see how many dates someone has been on, like marking on vinted that you've collected your order.

Then you could filter out the prolific ones with poor scores.

It’s fine I think, I wouldn’t date someone who was quite seriously over weight. It’s ok to have that preference, as fat isn’t attractive. Bit different when someone gains weight in an establish relationship than choosing to date someone a few stone overweight.

Height doesn't bother me. I'm 5'4 - I have in the past dated men between 5'2 and 6'6 - my husband is 5'8.

Aversge female height in uk is like 5ft3 or 5ft4. Plenty shorter women to match to him!

All this "6ft minimum"... Well, that's only like 25% of male population and all of them somehow seem to be married to mumsnetters... So he has little of tall competition out there in the wild.

I think it’s fair enough. Women are allowed to prefer tall men and men are allowed to prefer thin women .

But men care about weight in a partner significantly more than women do. So they aren’t deluded to think that a weight filter may help them more than it hurts them. Especially if their goal is to maximise good matches, not just total number of matches.

https://yougov.co.uk/health/articles/35836-physical-appearance-and-sexual-attractiveness

(This is “slimness”. I couldn’t find any surveys literally on weight).

Agree with others that height is very associated with men - you'll have 50+ five footers only interested in men over 6ft.

A weight option would simply be offensive back = 50+ men only interested in girls under a size 10

But my point is that weight doesn’t correlate to desired body type. If you say that the ideal is slim- but men are less fussy on height, the broad range on a height filter then wouldn’t work against a weight filter.

There are already selectors for body type

BMI filter - potentially ok (although that comes with its own set of issues).

Weight filter is ridiculous as so much depends on height and plenty of men seem to think any woman who weighs over 9 stone is a massive heifer. I remember my size 10 friend sitting on some blokes lap when and him joking that it was ok as it wasn't as if she was overweight 'and weighed 10.7 stone or anything'. Stop press - that is what she weighed.

I can’t believe you’re so niave. Why on earth would any want to date a fat person?

Okay, well then they’ll just have to accept that people they may have been attracted to have been filtered out 🤷🏻‍♀️

Some will care, others won’t. Presumably the ones that will care can go back and adjust the filters if they run into issues.

I’ve been thinking about this and I think that 49% not wanting weight filters could be a good thing.

It might be because they’ve dated women with more than one body type and would be open to it again or it might be that they have no clue what weight women are and don’t want to be too prescriptive and miss out on women who are their type.

Part of the problem with the height filter is that people don't realise how much it limits their choices.

It is so limiting that it actually affects the user experience of dating apps. A lot of people claim that the apps are not great at delivering partners. But if you set filters to exclude 90% of the population to begin with then that is hardly surprising, especially if the surviving 10% are being strongly chased by everyone else.

It is not always obvious how much of the population you exclude by setting the filter to a particular level.

The question should not necessarily be about what you want, as opposed to what you are prepared to accept and indeed what potential partners are prepared to accept in you.

So if you really want to increase your chances of success in getting a partner you should only set the filter to say 6ft and over if that is an absolute dealbreaker for you. Which not that many people actually realise.

I think a weight filter (or probably a size filter as it is a better indication of whether someone is overweight or not) would have a similar effect on mens choices as height does on womens choices.

The net result would probably be to further degrade the possibility of dating apps producing good matches and further degrade the user experience which I doubt whether businesses running dating apps would want.

Improving their apps to help bring people together I think would be a much better alternative than increasing filters.

We could easily solve this. Big Space Odyssey type monolith in every town. Dating apps require you to take a recent picture next to it. Shows size in both directions. I’m a genius who should be paid more.