Study: People Will Reveal Their Weight Quicker Than Their Politics When Dating

Here's a new twist to the dating game: dating couples are more likely to reveal their weight before their political beliefs according to one study.

Researchers at Brown University and the University of Miami sampled more than 2,900 online dating profiles and found that only 14 percent of online daters revealed even an interest in politics. Of those, about half said they were "middle of the road."

LiveScience has more:

"Because we know that long-term mates are more politically similar than random attachment might predict, we were interested to see how people seeking a mate end up with people who share their political values," study researcher and political scientist Rose McDermott of Brown University said in a statement. "This is particularly important because political ideology appears to be in part heritable, and so mates pass their ideology on to their children."

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Politics was so unpopular that it ranked 23 out of 27 among the provided interest categories — just below "video games" and above "business networking" and "book club."

When asked about their body type, a larger proportion of participants voluntarily described themselves as either "heavy set," having "a few extra pounds," or "stocky" than listed "politics" as one of their interests.

Those who were older or had received more education were more confident in describing detailed political leanings, like "very liberal" or "ultraconservative."

At this point researchers are taking their best guess as to why so many singles keep politics secret. Researcher Casey Klofstad of the University of Miami said he assumes they are just casting a wide net early on and at some point "we somehow filter out people who do not share our political preferences."