Then why aren't the Sex in the City girls huge?

A new study out of McMaster University in Canada indicates that women tend to eat less when they eat with men.

Meredith Young, PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, found that what a person chooses to eat at lunch or dinner is influenced by who they eat with and the gender make-up of the group.

By observing students in naturalistic settings in three large university cafeterias with a wide choice of food options and dining companions, Young found that women who ate with a male companion chose foods of significantly lower caloric value than did women who were observed eating with another woman.

What's more, when women ate in mixed-gender groups their food choices were at the lower end of the caloric scale; the more men in the group the fewer the calories. When women ate in all-female groups, their food was significantly higher in calories.

This really isn't all that surprising. The real reason I decided to post this is because of the press release's lead sentence:

If you are a woman who dines with a man, chances are you choose food with fewer calories than if you dine with a woman.

I'm wondering if English is the first language of whoever wrote this because it has such a lovely Latin lilt. It immediately brings to mind Ricardo Montalban, sitting on a chair of fine, Corinthian leather, sipping brandy and uttering, "If you are a woman who dines with a man..."

Apparently, seductive chatter is alive and well in the McMaster University press office. I wonder if whoever wrote that dines with a man... or a woman?