Do women really eat more salad ?

Let's Dive Into Science ! #5

I’m sure if you ask yourselves what’s a typical meal for a woman and what’s a typical meal for a man, you’ll have two different answers. You’ll probably think of something small and filled with vegetables and salad for women and think of a large meal with plenty of meat for men. Those, of course, are stereotypes. But, as sometimes stereotypes have founding in truth, I wanted to take a closer look on this subject.

Are there differences between men and women eating behavior and if so, is it due to biological or sociological differences ?

In their chapter in the Handbook of gender research in psychology, Herman and Polivy looked through several scientific articles to see if there were scientifically proven differences between women and men in terms of hunger, quantities eaten and preferences.

According to scientists, one thing is clear : men do eat more than women. But why ?

A first hypothesis is that men are bigger than women, have higher energy needs and, thus, eat more to compensate. But this doesn't explain the whole thing : men eat more than they are proportionally bigger. For example, a study found that men ate 33% more than women, whereas they weighted 16% more than women.

Another explanation proposed is that female deliberately suppress their intake. In fact, women are more likely to desire to lose weight, especially because they seem to be more judged negatively when they gain weight, and they to so by dieting (while male tend to exercise).

This combination of men having higher energy needs and women consciously cutting off their intake could explain the fact that men do eat more than women.

Besides, women also have a tendency to be irregular in their food intake and it seems to be linked to their menstrual cycle : they tend to eat more in the premenstrual phase. The reason why is not clear : maybe the rise in hormones in this period affects directly the food intake, or it affects it indirectly by having an influence on women’s moods. This mood change could, thus, have a impact on intake.

In conclusion, in terms of food intake, the stereotype is correct : men do eat more than women. But do they eat the same things, or are there differences in the types of food eaten by both genders ?

Well, once again the stereotypes are quite true : women do eat more fruits and vegetables and men do eat more red meat.

This could be explained by the fact that women tends to know more about the health value of food and are more concerned by it. This attention to health can also be linked to their deep concern about appearance and weight. As we’ve seen earlier, women are more likely to restrict their food intake in order to maintain or lose weight, but this also have an impact on their choice of food as they prefer to select healthy food such as vegetables and fruits rather than red meat.

‘The male identity is confirmed through what the man chooses to eat, whereas the female identity, to a larger extent, is defined by what she does not eat”

Finally, Herman and Polivy conclude that the differences in eating behavior observed between genders could be explained by a combination of physiological (e.g. men have higher energy needs) and sociological (e.g. women are more pressured by society to be slim and are judged more harshly on their food choices ; men are pushed to eat meat because it supposedly gives strength) influences.

Herman and Polivy do not explore the eating behaviors of transgender or non binary people. It could be interesting to include them in this study to better understand the influence of biology versus society in our food intake and preferences. Do trans women conform to the ‘female’ model of eating less and selecting more vegetables and vice versa for trans men ? What about non-binary people ? How do they fit in this binary model between meat versus salad ?

Of course, those studies only shows tendencies, you’re all free to eat however much you’d like and whatever you’d like ! Go have a steak with a side of salad, that will throw off scientists !

Thank you for your attention ! Don’t hesitate to like, comment and share this article !

Source :

Herman, C. P., & Polivy, J. (2010). Sex and gender differences in eating behavior. In Handbook of gender research in psychology (pp. 455-469). Springer, New York, NY.