The primary conclusion of the Nov. 21 story “Overeating to show off?” from the Washington Post is clearly an opinion. The study showed that men eat more when dining with a woman than when with men. The theory is that a million years ago, cavemen ate more to impress women. This seems implausible.
It is far more likely, in my opinion, that men eat more in front of women because of cultural conditioning starting from when they were children. Their mothers constantly urged these young men to eat all the food on their plates. This conditioning is activated whenever these men sit down at a table with a woman whom they strongly wish to please.
This is just a theory, but far more likely than the one published.
