Study of the Week: What You Eat Depends On With Whom You Eat

According to research conducted at McMaster University, if you're a woman who dines with a man, chances are you'll be consuming less calories than if you were chowing down with a woman. And the more females a woman eats with, the more calories she is likely to consume. Meanwhile, men are neither substantially affected by the number of nor the gender of their dining companions. The bastards!

Researchers observed students in naturalistic settings in three large university cafeterias with a wide choice of food options and dining companions. The study found that women who ate with a male companion chose foods of significantly lower caloric value than did women who were observed eating with another woman. Mix gendered groups meant fewer calories for the women, and the higher the number of men in the group, the lower the number of calories consumed.

Confused? Let me break it down further.

For female diners:
Eating with women = more calories
More women = more calories
Eating with men = less calories
Less men = less calories

For male diners:
The same calories regardless of the company

"Eating is a social activity," says Meredith Young, PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour. "In university cafeterias people select their food before they are seated and perhaps before they know with whom they will eat. Given the observed differences it seems likely that social groupings were anticipated at the time of food selection."

The diet industry targets female consumers and product advertisements typically depict very slim models rather than average-sized or overweight female models, she says, so food choices appear to be weighed against how other perceive them. In other words, smaller, healthier portions are seen as more feminine, and women might believe that if they eat less they will be considered more attractive to men.

"It is possible that small food portions signal attractiveness, and women conform, whether consciously or unconsciously, to small meals in order to be seen as more attractive," says Young.