Health & Medicine

Men Eat More If They're Dining With Women, Study Says

Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Nov 18, 2015 12:14 AM EST

Men eat more food when dining with women, according to a recent study.

The findings showed that men who ate with at least one woman during the study period ate 93 percent more pizza and 86 percent more salad than men who dined with other men. 

During the study, researchers examined 105 adults who ate an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet over the course of two weeks. They recorded the number of pizza slices and how many bowls of salad each diner ate, while noting the gender of each diner's eating partner or partners. Before leaving the restaurant, however, diners were asked to complete a short survey that asked their level of fullness after eating and if they felt hurried, along with their comfort level during the meal.

Researchers, however, found that female participants had different reactions from male ones. For instance, they discovered that the amount that women ate didn't differ when eating with other men or women--but that when women ate with men, as opposed to men who ate with women, they were more likely to feel that they had overeaten or feel rushed through the meal.

"These findings suggest that men tend to overeat to show off -- you can also see this tendency in eating competitions which almost always have mostly male participants," said lead study author Kevin Kniffin, PhD, of Cornell University, in a news release

The study is published in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science

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