I've actually done some research on this recently. It seems the science suggests paraphilias and fetishes stem from early childhood experiences. I've tried to trace my own attractions, but haven't really achieved much. I did have some idea at some point as a child that my mother was trying to fatten me, but that was probably just because I was an extremely picky eater, and we were very poor.
Poverty has historically and presently been strongly connected with an attraction for fat women. In Mauritania, there is still an abhorrent practice in which girls around the age of 13-14 are taken to camps and force-fed massive amounts, with the idea being that no one would want to marry a skinny woman. That has historically been the perspective in much of the world, and still is in many parts; that one can tell the worth of a man by the fatness of his wife.
If it were genetic, say, thin men being attracted to heavier women, the offspring would likely fall between the two weights, and the attraction would be unlikely to persist with any statistical significance.
9 years
