They are commonly known as ‘child bearing hips’, but the fact is that big hips are now becoming more and more popular.

Funnily enough, researchers have now found that women who have bigger hips are more likely to engage in one- night stands as compared to those with smaller hips. Also, women with wider hips are likely to have more sexual partners on a general level.

According to the authors of the study, the primary reason for this is just because they find childbirth to be a less traumatic affair, hence the term ‘child bearing hips’.

According to the research, wide hips are those hips which are wider than 14.2 inches, or 36 centimeters to be exact, while small hips are classified as those which are under 12.2 inches (31 centimeters wide).

This is measured by taking the distance between the widest part of the hip bones, also known as the iliac crest bones of the pelvis. The measurement is taken across, and not around the circumference. The research was carried out on 148 women who were enlisted, all of whom were between the ages of 18 and 26.

All of the women that were enlisted within the study had at least a single sexual partner throughout their history.

A questionnaire was also conducted which included questions to gauge the sexual history of the women involved in the research, which questions being asked to determine the age at which the women lost their virginity, the number of partners they had slept with as well as the number of emotionally significant relationships that they had been involved in.

The research, which was conducted at the University of Leeds, revealed that women who had wider hips were the ones who were more inclined towards one- night stands. On the contrary, women with small hips were not so willing to engage in such acts.

To be specific, those women for whom one night stands constituted three out of every four sexual relationships that they had been engaged in had at least a 2 cm width difference from those women who had engaged in a fewer number of one night stands.

The research lead was Professor Colin Hendrie, who suggested that women with wider hips were more willing to engage in sexual intercourse with different partners because of the fact that their birth process is generally easier and also involves significantly less trauma for them as compared to women who had smaller hips.

He also provided an explanation as to how the findings of the study relate back to the days when humans were still learning to walk upright, as well as the subsequent development of narrow hips, which allowed for much greater ease of walking.

During the process of evolution that has followed, the hips of women have become just wide enough to allow for childbirth. Because of this restriction, infants are usually born at a stage that is much less developed as compared to other primates.

As a result of this, infants usually require much more care and investment from their partners as compared to other primates. The research was initially published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, and provided surprising insight in to the different ways by which bone structure influenced sexual histories of women.