Researchers say women who dine together tend to eat at the same pace, meaning people on a diet should not eat out with friends who eat too much.
A team of Dutch researchers found that women who dine with companions are likely to eat a similar amount and at the same pace as they do.
Researchers brought together 70 pairs of normal-weight young women including a participant and an actor for a meal together and measured the length of time they took between bites.
They found that the two women immediately began mimicking each other in the number and timing of their mouthfuls and took a bite within five seconds of the other person took one.
Women were three times more likely to do this at the beginning of the meeting, possibly in order to ingratiate themselves with each other.
“We found a really strong correlation between how many bites the young women took. When the other person ate a lot they also did, and when the other person ate less they followed them too,” said Lead author Roel Hermans of Radboud University.
Previous findings said men also copied each other's eating to an extent, but were less concerned about the social norms surrounding food, researchers wrote in the journal PLoS ONE.
“As long as such important influences on intake are not wholeheartedly acknowledged, it will be difficult to make healthy food choices and maintain a healthy diet, [when] people are often exposed to the eating behavior of others,” they added.
Hermans and colleagues suggested further studies be conducted to see whether the mimicking effect is stronger or weaker for a family member or friend compared with a new companion.
Source: www.presstv.com
