The Diet That Can Make You More Attractive, According to a Medical Researcher and Registered Dietitian

There’s a lot that shapes how a person eats. Certainly, one’s culture and the foods they ate growing up play a big role. Your favorite meals may be ones that your own parents or grandparents used to make. 

Being exposed to other ways of eating through friends, dining at new restaurants or traveling around the world also influences how we eat. Similarly, your partner may have introduced you to foods they love that you’ve grown to love, too.

Health is, of course, another factor that shapes one’s diet. Maybe you’ve researched and found one to follow based on your specific health goals, such as the DASH diet to lower hypertension or the MIND diet to reduce the risk of dementia.

Choosing a diet to appear more attractive to others is something you may have never considered, but a 2026 scientific paper published in Recent Progress in Nutrition found that there just may be a connection. Parade talked to the paper’s lead researcher and author, David Goldman, RD, a registered dietitian, visiting researcher with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki and the Director of Research and Development at Metabite, Inc., to learn more.   

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The Diet That Can Make You More Attractive, According to Research

According to the research conducted by Goldman and his team based on data from the past 25 years, following a plant-based diet is associated with being more attractive to others. They found that eating primarily plants led to preferred body composition, facial appearance and body odor.

Perhaps one of the most straightforward findings was that eating a primarily plant-based diet lowers BMI, which is associated with higher attractiveness. “Many minimally processed plant foods are naturally lower in calories and high in fiber, which helps people feel full while eating fewer calories. Research shows that plant-based diets lead to bigger drops in BMI and body fat compared to diets that include meat. By supporting a healthier body composition, these diets help people reach the body fat levels linked to peak physical attractiveness,” Goldman tells Parade.

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Another one of the findings was that meals that are low-glycemic and don’t spike blood sugar are associated with higher attractiveness.

“Experiments showed that eating a high-glycemic breakfast made people look less attractive just two hours later,” Dr. Goldman says. This is because an insulin spike can influence hormones, which can subtly affect facial features and skin characteristics. 

“Over time, high-glycemic diets are linked to women looking older and men appearing less masculine, probably because of how high blood sugar affects hormones and skin,” Goldman adds.

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The Connection Between Scent and Attractiveness

Goldman and his team also found that what you eat influences how you naturally smell, which in turn influences how attractive others find you. “Diet is a main non-genetic factor that affects sweat and how it turns into body odor,” he explains.

Goldman says that studies found that men who didn’t eat meat produced sweat that was rated as more attractive, more pleasant and less intense than men who ate a lot of meat. Ever heard of the meat sweats? It’s real. A study published in the journal Chemical Senses found a link between a diet high in red meat and worse body odor.  

Similarly, Goldman and his colleagues’ research found that eating more fruits and vegetables is also linked to sweat that smells more floral, fruity, sweet and pleasant.

“While this is a new area of research, it suggests that what we eat can change our body odor in ways that matter for social interactions,” he tells Parade.

The Most Important Takeaway

Certainly, there are more important factors for choosing a diet than how it will make you look to others. And it’s of course important to keep in mind that attraction is entirely subjective. 

“Attractiveness involves more than just looks. It combines visual cues, scent and body composition into one overall impression,” Goldman says, adding that his research suggests that diet affects all these traits in different but connected ways. “Even if each effect is small, together they show how nutrition shapes our appearance across several senses at once.”

What he hopes people take away from the study is that eating impacts the body both immediately and long-term.

“Many food choices can lead to visible and socially meaningful changes within weeks, which can motivate people to stick with better habits,” Goldman says, adding that if attractiveness is an incentive that motivates people to eat healthier, he’s all for it. 

Perhaps what’s most important isn’t how your diet will change how others see you, but how you see yourself. New research published in Nutrientsshows that balanced nutrition is associated with higher self-esteem. And that’s a reward worth way more than what anyone else thinks.

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Sources:

• Goldman, D. and Nagra, M. (2026). The Role of Plant-Forward Diets in Physical Attractiveness: Integrating Facial, Olfactory, and Morphological Signals for Health Behavior Change.Recent Progress in Nutrition. doi:10.21926/rpn.2602010. 
• David Goldman, RD, registered dietitian, visiting researcher with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki and the Director of Research and Development at Metabite, Inc.
• Havlicek, J. and Lenochova, P. (2006). The effect of meat consumption on body odor attractiveness.Chemical Senses. 31(8):747-52.
• Sӑlcudean, A., Osz, B. E., Cȋmpian, D. M., et al. (2026). Dietary and Lifestyle Factors Associated with Self-Esteem in Adolescents: An Exploratory Questionnaire-Based Study. Nutrients. 18(3):546.