How does a lady tell if a man likes her? According to a research from Cornell University, the more he eats, the more he likes you.
The study discovered that men will eat more food when they dine with their female counterparts, as a way of showing off, than when they are with other men.
Kniffin and his colleagues Ozge Sigirci and Brian Wansink spent two weeks examining the eating habits of 105 adults who visited an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet.
They took note of the number of pizza slices and how many bowls of salad each subject consumed. Upon leaving the restaurant, each participant was asked to complete a survey that gauged how full they were after eating and how hurried or comfortable they felt while eating.
The researchers observed that men who were visiting the restaurant with at least one female ate 93 percent more pizza and 86 percent more salad compared to men who were dining out with other men. The amount that women ate, on the other hand, did not change from eating with another woman to a man.
In a press release, lead author Kevin Kniffin, PhD, of Cornell University explained that the findings suggest that men tend to overeat to show off and he also noted that we can also see this tendency in eating competitions which almost always have mostly male participants.
“By over-consuming food men unconsciously may be signalling their biological fitness, a paradoxical tactic in this case given that ‘overeating constantly is going to produce a body shape research shows tends to be viewed as unattractive,” Kniffin explained.
This risky or unhealthy behaviour is a way for men to let their female companion know that they can tolerate changes, even self-inflicted ones.
While this study suggests men overate, it’s the women who reported a sense of overeating.
Source: Wansink B, Sigirci O, Kniffin K. Eating Heavily: Men Eat More in the Company of Women. Evolutionary Psychological Science. 2015.
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