Plant-forward diets may influence attractiveness through skin, body odor and body composition, review finds

A plant-forward diet may influence how attractive people appear to others through changes in skin coloration, body odor and body composition, according to a review that brought together more than two decades of research into diet and physical appearance.

• Researchers reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2025 examining links between diet and facial appearance, body odor, adiposity and perceived attractiveness.
• Higher fruit and vegetable intake was associated with carotenoid-related skin coloration, while controlled studies found dietary changes could also alter the perceived pleasantness of body odor.
• The authors suggested appearance-related feedback could complement conventional nutrition messaging, but cautioned against overstating links between perceived attractiveness and physiological health.

Published in Recent Progress in Nutrition, the narrative review was conducted by David Goldman of the University of Helsinki and Metabite, and Matthew Nagra of the University of British Columbia.

Rather than treating attractiveness as a single visual characteristic, the researchers examined three routes through which diet could affect perceptions: facial appearance, body odor and body composition.

The strongest evidence concerned carotenoids, pigments obtained through foods including fruits and vegetables that can accumulate in the skin and alter its coloration.

Previous experimental work reviewed by Goldman and Nagra found that people generally preferred faces with greater carotenoid-associated coloration and perceived them as healthier.

One longitudinal study tracking 35 participants over six weeks found changes in fruit and vegetable consumption were significantly associated with changes in skin yellowness and redness. Its perceptual testing suggested an increase of around 2.9 portions of fruits and vegetables a day was sufficient to improve perceived health, while approximately 3.3 additional portions were required to improve perceived attractiveness.

Another randomized controlled trial involving 81 Malaysian Chinese university students found that consuming a carotenoid-rich fruit and vegetable smoothie for six weeks significantly increased skin yellowness and redness, with measurable changes emerging after four weeks.

The review stressed, however, that looking healthier was not necessarily the same as becoming physiologically healthier.

Research involving beta-carotene supplementation found increased skin yellowness and improvements in perceived health and attractiveness without corresponding improvements in measures including oxidative stress, innate immune function or semen quality.

Goldman and Nagra therefore cautioned against treating carotenoid-related coloration as direct proof of improved physiological health.

Diet also appeared to affect attractiveness through pathways unrelated to skin pigmentation.

Studies examining glycemic load produced more complicated results. One controlled experiment involving 104 French adults found that consuming a high-glycemic breakfast reduced facial attractiveness ratings in both men and women when participants were photographed two hours later.

Longer-term associations were less consistent, with the researchers noting that differences in study design, timing and dietary assessment could help explain conflicting findings.

Body odor provided another route through which food choices appeared capable of changing social perceptions.

In one controlled study, 17 men followed either a meat-rich or non-meat diet for two weeks before their axillary odor was evaluated by 30 women. Odor produced during the non-meat diet was rated as more attractive, more pleasant and less intense.

Other research reviewed by Goldman and Nagra linked greater skin yellowness, used as a proxy for carotenoid-rich fruit and vegetable intake, with more pleasant-smelling sweat.

The evidence was not entirely consistent. One observational study found self-reported consumption of meat, eggs and tofu correlated with more pleasant sweat, contrasting with the controlled red-meat experiment. The authors noted that differences between long-term self-reported diets and short-term controlled interventions complicated comparisons.

Garlic produced another unexpected finding. Experiments included in the review found that higher doses of garlic improved ratings of male axillary odor, despite garlic's familiar association with breath odor. The researchers cautioned that the evidence came from a single publication containing three experiments and required further investigation.

The third pathway involved body composition.

Research cited in the review found adiposity played a substantial role in judgments of physical attractiveness. Separately, evidence from dietary studies has associated plant-based diets with greater reductions in BMI and body fat than omnivorous diets.

The authors were careful not to claim that plant-forward eating had directly been shown to increase attractiveness through weight loss. Studies linking dietary patterns with body composition and those examining adiposity and attractiveness were largely separate, making the connection indirect.

The review defined plant-forward diets as patterns emphasizing whole plant foods while reducing, rather than necessarily eliminating, animal products.

Goldman and Nagra argued that the different appearance-related effects could operate over different timescales. Carotenoid-associated skin changes and alterations to body odor could emerge relatively quickly, while changes in adiposity would generally require longer periods of sustained dietary change.

That speed could have implications for nutrition campaigns.

Traditional public health messages frequently emphasize benefits such as reducing long-term disease risk. The researchers examined whether more immediately visible consequences of eating differently could provide another source of motivation.

Previous intervention research cited in the review found that participants shown personalized visualizations of diet-induced changes in their skin coloration subsequently increased their fruit and vegetable consumption, with changes maintained for 10 weeks.

Another survey involving 802 participants found 57% reported being motivated by a demonstration of diet-related skin color change.

The authors suggested such approaches could complement conventional health messaging, particularly because changes in appearance could provide feedback much sooner than reductions in chronic disease risk become apparent.

They also identified substantial ethical limitations.

Appearance-focused nutrition campaigns could reinforce harmful body image standards, encourage self-objectification or stigmatize people based on weight. Cultural differences also meant the same appearance changes were not necessarily perceived similarly across populations.

The review cited research showing Chinese and Caucasian UK observers differed in their preferences for facial yellowness, for example, suggesting appearance-based interventions would need to be validated for different cultural contexts.

Rather than centering campaigns on weight loss or an idealized body shape, the researchers identified skin coloration resulting from increased fruit and vegetable consumption as a potentially less problematic route for exploring appearance-based dietary motivation.

The evidence nevertheless remained preliminary. The review was narrative rather than systematic, did not include a formal risk-of-bias assessment or meta-analysis, and the authors acknowledged a potential risk of confirmation bias in study selection.

Further longitudinal research combining controlled dietary interventions with measurements of physiology, appearance, odor and body composition would be needed to establish how strongly the different effects operate together.

For now, the review suggested that the consequences of changing what people eat may extend into characteristics that can be seen – and, in some cases, smelled – within weeks.

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