Sources
Every figure, and where it comes from.
The rigor is the product. Each number the model uses is listed here with its published source, so you (or anyone skeptical) can check it.
Income substitutes for height at about $40,000 per inch
~$226,000 over 5.5 inches ≈ $41,000/inch
Hitsch, G. J., Hortacşu, A., & Ariely, D. "What Makes You Click? Mate Preferences in Online Dating." Quantitative Marketing and Economics (2010). Their analysis of a large online-dating sample found that a shorter man needed substantially higher income to receive the same amount of interest as a taller man, with the tradeoff working out to roughly $40,000 of annual income per inch of height. This is the basis for the report's income lever. Note the vintage: the sample is mid-2000s dating-site behaviour, published in 2010 and predating Tinder and modern swipe apps, so we use the ratio as a directional guide to the height/income tradeoff, not as a current market exchange rate.
Taller men receive markedly more first-contact interest
Tall men ~65% more messages; 6' ≈ 2× response
Drawn from analyses of online-dating messaging behavior, including the Hitsch et al. work above and widely reported dating-platform data: men in the tallest bands receive on the order of 65% more first-contact messages than men in the shortest bands, and men around 6' draw roughly double the response of men under 5'9". These ratios shape the height desirability curve described in Methodology.
Most women filter for a minimum height
~60% prefer 6'+; ~92% want a man ≥3" taller; only ~14.5% of US men are 6'+
Survey and dating-app preference data consistently show a large majority of women state a preference for taller partners, with a commonly cited figure of about 60% preferring men 6' or over, and roughly 92% preferring a partner at least three inches taller than themselves. For scale, US Census and CDC anthropometric data put the share of adult US men at 6' or taller at around 14.5%. This is the market backdrop the levers are measured against, not an input the model scores directly.
Male attractiveness peaks in the BMI 23 to 27 band
Peak ≈ BMI 25
Body-composition and attractiveness research finds that ratings of male physical attractiveness peak in a BMI band roughly from 23 to 27, centered near 25, rather than at the lowest BMI. The report uses this to set the target of BMI 24 and to compute your exact weight change to reach it.
US male height distribution
Mean ≈ 5'9" (69 in), SD ≈ 2.9 in
CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) anthropometric reference data for US adult men. Used to convert your height into a percentile among men.