My New Diet Plan: Always Eat Alone

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Via Andrew Sullivan, we learn this from the good folks at New Scientist:

Researchers at Georgia State University in Atlanta have shown that group size dramatically affects the number of calories consumed. If you are with one other person, you will eat 35 per cent more calories than if you dine alone. In a group of eight, you’re looking at a whopping 90 per cent increase.

Really? If I’m in a group of eight I’m likely to eat twice as much as if I eat alone? That seems spectacularly unlikely. Can someone please do some research for me and report back on whether this is really true? The underlying study here is from 1992, and surely there have been followups since. Thanks!

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate