Are you more David Brent than Strictly Come Dancing? Blame your mother

Can't work out why you suddenly lose all co-ordination when you hit the dancefloor? Well, at last there is some good news. It's not your fault - blame your mother.Academics have discovered that men's ability to dance is dictated by what happens in the womb, specifically the amount of testosterone to which they are exposed. A team of British and German psychologists have found out that a man's expertise (or lack of it) is predetermined by levels of prenatal hormonal exposure.
Their findings will be welcomed by legions of men who know that their dancing style owes more to David Brent's crazed 'Flashdance fused with MC Hammer' routine in The Office than cricketer Mark Ramprakash's polished performance that won last week's Strictly Come Dancing
New research by Bernhard Fink of the University of Goettingen in Germany and colleagues, including John Manning from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, shows that the key indicator is the respective lengths of men's index finger and their ring finger - what scientists call the 2D:4D ratio.
According to tests they conducted, the lower a man's 2D:4D ratio, the more testosterone he will have been exposed to before being born and thus the better dancer he will be - and also the more likely to attract female admiration. Men with a high 2D:4D ratio, however, are likely to lumbered with the social handicap of chronic inability to dance.
The psychologists filmed 52 male students dancing and selected the 12 who had the highest and lowest 2D:4D ratios. After blurring the footage to obscure their height and body shape, they asked 104 female undergraduates to rate their efforts. Those with the lowest 2D:4D ratios got the highest marks for 'attractiveness', 'dominance' and 'masculinity'.
But mothers should not take all the blame for their sons' talent in this department, said Fink, as the full effects of 'foetal programming' - the influence of hormones on unborn children - are not yet known.

Jim x