In Dr. Weston A. Price’s seminal work Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, the link between the attractive wide faces of isolated peoples consuming their native diets and their strong, sturdy, healthy bodies is discussed in detail. Most compelling are the dozens of photographs Price took to document his work visually.
These healthy natives were also happy and cheerful despite many hardships and did not suffer from mental or personality disorders so common today.Â
Children born to healthy primitives who had abandoned their native diets in favor of the displacing foods of modern commerce – white sugar, white flour, and canned foods had narrowed faces, crowded teeth and other deformities of bone structure indicative of nutritional deficiency of the fat soluble vitamins during gestation and early childhood. These include vitamin A, vitamin D, and vitamin K2.
Now comes a study from communications professor Elaine Wong of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and two of her business school colleagues which appears to corroborate Dr. Price’s findings from a most powerful place in industrialized society – the CEO corner office.
Professor Wong found that Chief Executive Officers with wider faces are more effective leaders particularly in those firms that are top-down structured.
Photos of 55 male CEOs of publicly traded companies from 1996-2002 were used to analyze broadness from cheekbone to cheekbone as compared with brow to upper lip.  Those that were broader horizontally were classified as wide faced CEOs.
The research team then analyzed each company’s return on assets in 2003-2004.
Wide faced CEOs performed 10% better than CEOs classified as narrow faced.
Could it be that the wide faced CEOs were healthier and able to work harder and longer than those with the narrow faces? Could it be that they were mentally more balanced and able to coordinate and work with others more effectively to produce positive returns for the company?
Were the wide faced CEOs simply more cheerful and happy in disposition which encouraged a positive and productive working environment for those they were charged to lead?
Professor Wong says that previous studies have shown that men with wide faces have more testoterone, aggression and a sense of power which could explain the differences between the 2 groups of CEOs.
Interestingly, women did not show any differences in behavior based on facial size.
Whatever the reason, it appears that checking a photograph of the current CEO of a company before investing in it might be a wise idea particularly with the current volatility of world stock markets.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source:Â Forbes, September 26, 2011
The original article I read about this pointed out something else that I found ineresting: successful CEOs with wide faces are also more likely to cheat and lie and do other unethical behaviors to get to the top! In that regard, I would not trust a wide-faced CEO person right off the bat. Perhaps facial structure can tell us something about the person’s competitiveness–which probably does have its roots set in survival, but not necessarily in long-term and trusting relationships. This is definitely interesting and I do agree with the WAPF principles, but I try to remember that there is more to a person than his/her face. 🙂
Given the lifestyle, who knows? Anything they wanted probably which likely involved overindulging.
interesting point. Probably sugar and caffeine
When Dr. Price’s healthy natives went off their native diets lots of problems ensued even if they were wide faced. I wonder what these hockey players were eating!
There was also a study showing that wide faced men were the most angry and violent. They studied ice hockey players
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Very interesting indeed!
Peggy, that was hilarious! Thanks for giving me a huge laugh with that comment! :O
Raising a single Vulcan eyebrow and proclaiming this “fascinating.”
The hypothesis about health and hormone balance as supportive of output is interesting; I’ll mull that over for a while.
Psychological research also tells us that wide, symmetrical faces are more attractive, and that more attractive people have more social capital, ie people like/believe/follow them more readily than plain people. We know that in a presidential race between 2 equally matched men, the taller is more likely to win. So we can’t discount the reaction of the people *around* the CEOs when considering the causes of their success.