The gender of gorging

I read a 'Hear is the City' article today on the difference between how men and women work and it got me thinking about the differences between the sexes when it comes to attitudes to food.

These are my observations/generalisations:

Men think about food a lot less than women ... women think about food alot, especially those who aren't naturally slender. What to eat, when to eat, amounts of calories, grams of fat etc. This can lead to distorted food choices. Whereas men tend to forget about food until they get hungry and are guided by their appetite as to when to eat, but this can lead to poor food choices through grabbing food on the go and not planning meals in advance.

Men are more likely to use exercise as an excuse to eat unhealthily. Although this can apply to both sexes I think that men are generally less conscious about their health so think that if they are doing enough exercise to stay slim (or are naturally slim) that it is a license to eat as much KFC, burger king, pizza and chocolate as they like and drink infinite quantities of beer. Men of course have the advantage naturally burning off more calories due to higher lean muscle mass.

Men see over-eating as something to be proud of ... as witnessed over the weekend at lunch where the guys took great pride in polishing off a big rack of ribs whilst their girlfriends stopped eating at half the portion! Women are infact more likely to over-indulge at home than socially, and a study last year found that if eating out with men women were less likely to over-eat than if dining in all female company.

So what can we learn from these differences?

Lessons for men:
-Try and be more conscious of the health effects of what you're eating even if you aren't over-weight and make sure you eat plenty of fruit and veg.

-Keep a food diary for a week so you are aware of any bad habits/unhealthy choices you've got.

-Drinking and eating challenges may be part of male camaraderie but can have serious health implications such as diabetes and heart disease, Use the 80/20 rule to limit over-indulging.

Lessons for women:
-If you want to be able to eat more you'll need to up your exercise to keep the weight off. Doing weights to increase lean muscle mass will speed up your metabolism, whilst just focussing or cardiovascular exercise may be counter productive by causing muscle loss.

-Calorie counting and a fear of fat can infact lead to unhealthy food choices. Following the latest low calorie diet can infact slow your metabolism down making it hard to lose weight. Try not to obsess or worry about food and instead be guided by your appetite and choosing healthy food groups and you'll make better choices.

-Keep a food diary too and watch out for any regular over-indulging .. note when it happens and if it's more likely when you're at home then give away your hoard of chocolate and stock your cupboards with healthy snacks.
------------------