|
 Researchers observed diners at an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet and
found men who dined with at least one woman at the table ate 93
percent more pizza than their peers who had only male dining
companions.
The tendency to overeat extended to healthier fare as well – men ate
86 percent more salad in the company of women.
“We find that while men disproportionately over-eat in the company
of women, women felt like they overate and felt rushed when eating
with men even though there was no evidence that they actually ate
more,” said lead study author Kevin Kniffin of the Dyson School of
Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University in Ithaca,
New York.
“People should calm down when eating with members of the opposite
sex,” Kniffin added by email.
To see how mixed-sex dining might influence eating habits, Kniffin
and colleagues asked 74 men and 59 women at an Italian restaurant
with a menu featuring unlimited pizza, salad and sides to join them
for a lunchtime experiment.
Researchers asked diners arriving at the restaurant why they chose
it and whether they considered other places to distract them from
the true purpose of the study, and then sat back to watch how much
people ate based on who else was at their table.
Men dining with women typically ate about three slices of pizza and
five bowls of salad, compared with about 1.5 slices and less than
three bowls of salad when they ate in the company of other men.
The women, meanwhile, ate more salad and less pizza when joined by
female companions than when dining with men.
It's possible that the men might be unconsciously signaling their
biological fitness through excessive eating, essentially showing off
to appear attractive to a potential mate, Kniffin said. By engaging
in risky or unhealthful behavior during the meal, the men signal
that they are so healthy and fit that they can endure self-inflicted
pain on a temporary basis, at least.
"In other words, 'self-handicap behavior' is basically a kind of
showing off," Kniffin said.
[to top of second column] |
Beyond the small size of the study, other limitations include the
lack of social context for the meals that might provide clues about
how eating habits differed for a date versus a business lunch, the
researchers acknowledge in the journal Evolutionary Psychological
Science.
It may be a stretch, for example, to assume that men might eat more
pizza in the presence of women only because they feel a need to show
off, said Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at New
York University Langone Medical Center who wasn’t involved in the
study.
Nerves, the social setting, and who is picking up the tab all might
contribute to how much men eat on dates, for example, Heller said by
email.
While it’s hard to make specific diet recommendations based on such
a small study, overall guidelines for healthy eating can still apply
when men and women dine together, Heller noted. Following a
plant-based diet most of the time, though, might help supersede the
high intake of pizza and burgers on occasion.
“We should all be eating more slowly, mindfully and thoughtfully,”
Heller said. “There is never any reason to stuff one’s self into a
food coma. It’s tough on the body in many ways and never leaves one
feeling energized, healthy, or in the case of the male-female
relationship, sexy.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1MT7Jt0 Evolutionary Psychological Science,
online November 10, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
