Men eat more food to show off and appear more masculine around people, study suggests

Men 'dramatically' overeat in social situations because they feel it makes them appear more masculine, new research suggests.

To investigate how eating with others affects a person's behaviour, US researchers challenged 20 men and women of similar body types to competitively eat chicken wings in a 30-minute contest, both with and without cheering spectators. The competitors were told they would be given a medal for winning that had no monetary value.

The second part of the study by the Food Lab at Cornell University involved a survey of 93 students who rated male and female competitive eaters in a random order based on how intelligent, attractive, healthy, strong, and romantic they seemed.

Participants in the study ate four times more chicken wings on average when eating competitively, at 23 pieces. But when they were being cheered on by a crowd, men ate 30.5 wings while women ate 17, the study showed.

Surveyed after the competition, women said they felt “self-conscious” and a “little embarrassed” as opposed to men who described the contest as “cool” and “exhilarating”.

Researchers in the small study concluded that, even when the stakes are relatively low, eat “dramatically” more food, according to the authors.

These findings support previous studies which indicate that men overeat in social situations “where there are opportunities to ‘show off’”.

This could affect how much, particularly younger men, eat at parties and other events.

Brian Wansink, the director of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab and lead author of the study, told Broadly that men exhibit more extreme behaviour if they think others are watching – particularly heterosexual men in front of women.