Some studies to rebut the gaslighting around irrelevance of physique:
"Evolution equips sexually reproducing species with mate choice mechanisms that function to evaluate the reproductive consequences of mating with different individuals. Indeed, evolutionary psychologists have shown that women's mate choice mechanisms track many cues of men's genetic quality and ability to invest resources in the woman and her offspring. One variable that predicted both a man's genetic quality and his ability to invest is the man's formidability (i.e. fighting ability or resource holding power/potential). Modern women, therefore, should have mate choice mechanisms that respond to ancestral cues of a man's fighting ability. One crucial component of a man's ability to fight is his upper body strength. Here, we test how important physical strength is to men's bodily attractiveness. Three sets of photographs of men's bodies were shown to raters who estimated either their physical strength or their attractiveness.
Estimates of physical strength determined over 70% of men's bodily attractiveness. Additional analyses showed that tallness and leanness were also favoured, and, along with estimates of physical strength, accounted for 80% of men's bodily attractiveness. Contrary to popular theories of men's physical attractiveness, there was no evidence of a nonlinear effect; the strongest men were the most attractive in all samples."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44202-023-00108
"A recent Australian study demonstrated that both men and women want to have less body fat and more muscularity than they perceived that they had, and that men and women’s body ideals are more extreme than the opposite sex finds most attractive. The present study aimed to provide more evidence for the discrepancy between self-reported actual and ideal body fat and muscularity. Further, the present study aimed to explore the relationship between ideal bodies, and the bodies reported to be most attractive by the opposite sex by examining a sample of heterosexual North American men and women. Using data from 362 participants recruited through Amazon’s MTurk, this study employed figural rating scales to assess participants' actual and ideal body fat and muscularity, as well as their perceptions of the most attractive body for the opposite sex.
Results showed that men wanted to have less body fat and more muscularity, and women wanted to have less body fat than they perceived themselves to have.
Additionally, results showed that men’s ideal body was in-line with women’s preferences. However, analogous to prior research in an Australian sample, women wanted to be thinner than what men found most attractive. These findings underscore the importance of addressing body dissatisfaction and promoting healthy body image ideals. Future interventions should focus on challenging societal beauty standards and promoting body acceptance, taking into account the influence of media and social factors on body image perceptions and preferences."
"In addition to women’s mate preferences for men faces, men’s bodily features are highly desirable in women’s mate choice. For example, women are more attracted to men’s physical features that signal sexually selected characteristics, such as high waist to hip ratios (
Henss, 2000), low waist to chest ratios (
Braun & Bryan, 2006;
Buunk & Dijkstra, 2005), high shoulder to hip ratios (
Pazhoohi et al., 2019), and strong body types (
Sell et al., 2017). It is argued that such physical features signal good genetic quality and women may benefit from choosing a high-quality mate to potentially pass down such traits to their offspring (
Sell et al., 2017). These physical traits are considered to be honest signals, since they are costly to produce, and only high-quality individuals can afford to display such features (
Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999;
Zahavi & Zahavi, 1997). Strong bodies require energetic demands, and the ability to resist diseases; therefore, men’s phenotypic qualities reflect genetic quality (
Sell et al., 2017). Men with formidable features are more likely to succeed during intrasexual competitive displays, such as being successful in direct conflict over resources (
Sell et al., 2009), hunting (
Apicella, 2014), and in coalition formation (Lukazsweski et al., 2015). Direct benefits, in the form of protection and immediate resource acquisition, plays an important role in women’s mate preferences and indicates that formidability is an important criterion in mate selection (
Sell et al., 2017)."