Women ate the same amount no matter whom they were with.
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A new study shows that men who eat with women tend to eat more.
It might sound like the totally wrong thing to do, but in an effort to show off in front of women, guys seem to eat a whole lot more than when they’re just out with the guys.
Men eat significantly more food in the company of women than they do when dining with the same sex. “Instead of a feat of strength, it’s a feat of eating”.
“‘Eating lightly” among women has been well-studied in the past – the idea is that women tend to eat less in the company of men”, explains lead study author Kevin Kniffin, PhD, who is a visiting assistant professor at Cornell University.
Over a two-week period, researchers with Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab watched 105 adults eat lunch at an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet.
Researchers at Cornell University think this is all down to men having a few need to show off their eating prowess. “The new research findings fit with the latter”. According to Kniffin, overeating reveals to sexual partners a “biological fitness”, to which women are supposed to respond to positively, the study postulates: “Engaging in risky or unhealthy behavior, the thinking goes, demonstrates an extraordinary ability to tolerate challenges, even self-inflicted ones”.
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Previous studies have looked into the evolutionary mechanisms that influence female eating patterns, but disordered eating among men – such as the overeating found at competitive eating contests, which are typically dominated by male competitors – has not been closely scrutinized. When they ate with men, many women mentioned feeling that they overate and were rushed through their meal.
