The Karo Batak people from North Sumatra find large-footed women more attractive, MinnPost reported.
A study published in the journal, Human Nature found that unlike in most parts of the world, including the U.S., woman with large feet were favored.
This finding is important because it opposes the widely-accepted view in evolutionary-psychology that humans developed their mating preferences thousands of years ago, and these preferences are similar for all cultures.
The new study suggests that sexual preferences are actually based more on cultural norms than anything else.
Geoff Kushnick, an anthropologist at the University of Washington, observed 159 men and women of various ages who are from the Indonesian region. Kushnick showed them five drawings of women that were dressed the same and looked similar, the only difference was the size of their feet.
"The Karo Batak judgments revealed a striking preference for the images of women with big feet," Kushnick wrote.
He claimed both the men and women believed that the female drawings with just marginally larger feet were more attractive.
The findings challenge a 2005 study that looked at people from: "Iran, India, Lithuania, Brazil, the United States, Cambodia, Tanzania, and Papua New Guinea."
The study showed a universal preference for small feet, which they concluded could mean a universal beauty standard. It was also speculated that smaller feet could be perceived as more fertile, because women's feet tend to get larger after pregnancy.
Other regions that prefer larger feet are: Tanzania, Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea.
Kushnick found rural society's with little or no exposure to Western culture were more independent in their beauty standards.
"The preference for women with big feet in rural societies suggest that it may be adaptive," he said. "In the Karo Batak communities I studied, men were overheard saying that a woman with larger feet was stronger and thus more productive in the rice fields."
