Sources
The rigor is the product. Each number the model uses is listed here with its published source, so you (or anyone skeptical) can check it.
~$226,000 over 5.5 inches ≈ $41,000/inch
Hitsch, G. J., Hortacsu, A., & Ariely, D. "What Makes You Click? Mate Preferences in Online Dating." Quantitative Marketing and Economics. Their analysis of a large online-dating sample found that a shorter man needed substantially higher income to receive the same amount of interest as a taller man, with the tradeoff working out to roughly $40,000 of annual income per inch of height. This is the basis for the report's income lever.
Tall men ~65% more messages; 6' ≈ 2× response
Drawn from analyses of online-dating messaging behavior, including the Hitsch et al. work above and widely reported dating-platform data: men in the tallest bands receive on the order of 65% more first-contact messages than men in the shortest bands, and men around 6' draw roughly double the response of men under 5'9". These ratios shape the height desirability curve described in Methodology.
~60% prefer 6'+; ~92% want a man ≥3" taller; only ~14.5% of US men are 6'+
Survey and dating-app preference data consistently show a large majority of women state a preference for taller partners, with a commonly cited figure of about 60% preferring men 6' or over, and roughly 92% preferring a partner at least three inches taller than themselves. For scale, US Census and CDC anthropometric data put the share of adult US men at 6' or taller at around 14.5%. This is the market backdrop the levers are measured against, not an input the model scores directly.
Peak ≈ BMI 25
Body-composition and attractiveness research finds that ratings of male physical attractiveness peak in a BMI band roughly from 23 to 27, centered near 25, rather than at the lowest BMI. The report uses this to set the target of BMI 24 and to compute your exact weight change to reach it.
Mean ≈ 5'9" (69 in), SD ≈ 2.9 in
CDC National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) anthropometric reference data for US adult men. Used to convert your height into a percentile among men.