---
title: The Reason Men Eat Way More When They Dine With Women
description: Researchers from Cornell University watched an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet and found some interesting results.
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published: '2015-11-20T18:58:06.000Z'
modified: '2024-02-23T09:45:39.000Z'
section: Lifestyle
tags:
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  - gender gap
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word_count: 174
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![Inside A Yum! Brands Inc. Pizza Hut Restaurant](https://img.money.com/2015/11/gettyimages-467488840.jpg)

It's not a surprise that society's ridiculous and unfair pressure on women to be thin [causes them to eat less](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2009/08/women_eat_daintily_around_men_1.html), particularly [in front of men](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205003/Want-lose-weight-Women-eat-dine-company-men.html). Well it turns out guys have the opposite problem: They eat more when there's a woman around.

Like, *way* more. According to *[The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/men-overeat-to-impress-women/416760/)*, researchers at Cornell set up shop at an all-you-can-eat pizza place and recorded what people consumed. The [results were stunning](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-015-0035-3): Men ate 93% more pizza and 86% more salad when they shared a table with a woman instead of a dude.

The researchers posited a theory that sounds ridiculous in today's social landscape but isn't that hard to wrap your brain around if you replace humans with gorillas in your head. For a male, eating a lot is a big, masculine act that has an evolutionary advantage of attracting a mate.

You'd think we'd be beyond this show of macho eating by the 21st century, but let's remember that this is still the same world that sees a massive wage gap between men and women.

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