You know how some people just seem to radiate good health.
You can’t quite put your finger on exactly what it is about them. It’s just this general glowing vitality that seems to exude from their every pore.
Well, we’re on the right track. It has a lot to do with their skin – the colour of their skin, to be precise.
This probably divides us into two camps:
- Those who see the golden tan of sun-kissed skin as being a symbol of health
- Those who think fair skin that’s been shielded from the ravages of excess sun is healthier
Well actually, it’s neither.
What makes a person look healthy is their yellowy-orange skin. Yep, YELLOW-ORANGE skin!
I know, doesn’t sound healthy at all. Unless you’re one of The Simpsons or an Oompa Loompa from Charlie’s Chocolate Factory. In fact, it seems to suggest the complete opposite. Yellow skin sounds sickly and jaundiced. And orange skin just sounds like some nasty, heavy-handed fake tan.
So, what on earth are we thinking when we see this as attractive and healthy? Have we lost our mind or is there actually something to it?
Can we judge a face by its colour?
We certainly can. There’s nothing at all strange about us finding someone’s yellowy-orange skin attractive. In fact, we’re complete geniuses for it because we’re onto something much deeper than we realise.
When we pick up on someone’s healthy glow, what we’ve actually done is successfully identify a person who eats a healthy diet rich in fruits and veg, who’s physically active and has solid aerobic fitness, who boasts a low level of body fat, who possesses sharp eyesight and a strong immune system, just to name a few. In other words, someone who’s a picture of health.
And that’s pretty damn clever of us. Especially considering we make this deeply insightful judgement instantly and without a hint of awareness.
That’s because it’s actually instinct. Not to diminish our genius but this instinct is something we share with all sorts of animals, including birds and fish. We’re all attracted to the healthful appearance of yellowy-orange skin (or beaks, feathers or scales depending on what you’re into).
But why???
It’s all about the carotenoids
Carotenoids are yellow-coloured compounds found in fruits and vegetables that give them their bright colours. Things like carrots, sweet potatoes, corn, kale, tomatoes, guava are good sources, just to name a few but the list is really extensive, so have a search sometime to find a source of carotenoids that you’d be keen on munching.
Given our body doesn’t produce its own carotenoids, the only way we can get our fix is through diet. By eating plenty of colourful fruit and vegetables, we gain the antioxidant properties of the carotenoids and gain a host of health benefits. And we also gain the dewy yellow-orange skin that’s caused by this pigment.
So carotenoids make us healthier and also make us look healthier.
Nature’s hint to swipe left
This obvious signposting of our health status is deeply important. That’s why it’s instinctive. It’s our way of identifying a healthy mate. In survival of the fittest, there’s no point hooking up with some sickly creature who can’t pull their weight and who produces equally useless offspring. We’ve got to have a way of bypassing them.
The colour of our skin is nature’s way of getting us to swipe left (I had to look that up btw). No lovely citrus-coloured skin? Move on. There’s someone else out there for you. Someone who eats their veges.
Given this is deeply engrained biology talking, it’s got no trouble crossing racial groups and the differences in skin colour that result from melanin.
Studies have shown a cross-cultural link between skin yellowness and the appearance of health. When presented with photos, individuals with higher yellow pigmentation were considered to be healthier. And when the participants were allowed to tweak the photos to make the person look healthier, they dialled up the yellow colouring in every single picture.
Get the glow
So yellowy-orange skin is a universal symbol of health. And best of all, we now know exactly how to get it.
To make our skin glow, all we have to do is eat a diet rich in fruit and vegetables. Studies show people with the highest intakes of fruit and veg (and therefore carotenoids) displayed the highest skin colour values.
But as always, it’s about moderation. You don’t want to go so hard on the carotenoids that you end up with skin that looks like you’ve had a cheap and heavy fake tan. Yes, excess intake can do that – and extend to your nails and the whites (or what will be yellows) of your eyes.
So eat up in moderation and enjoy the twofold benefit of looking and feeling healthier.
