Women eat more with other women around, less with men

Eating is social. Who you eat with can affect how much you eat. So maybe women who want to lose weight should consider eating with men rather than other females! For men, it makes no difference who they eat with as to how much they eat.

".. 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…

…smaller, healthier portions are seen as more feminine, and women might believe that if they eat less they will be considered more attractive to men…

…men were neither substantially affected by the number of nor the gender of their dining companions."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/mu-wye080509.php