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The gender divide starts over dinner

March 20, 2008

A new study has found that the difference between the sexes extends to their dinner plates. Men are decidedly the carnivores while women prefer leaner, greener fare.

The study, performed at the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, confirmed some standing stereotypes, no doubt, but it might also help experts develop strategies to get both sexes to eat healthier diets. The findings were presented at the 2008 International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, held recently in Atlanta.

Using data from 15,000 American Adults who participated in the 2007 Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network survey, researchers collected information on the various foods participants had eaten over the past seven days.

“We thought it would be interesting to see whether there were any gender differences,” lead researcher Beletshachew Shiferaw said in a prepared statement. “To our knowledge, there have been studies in the literature on gender differences in eating habits, but nothing this extensive.”

They found men were more likely to eat a wide variety of meat such as poultry, veal and game. For example, 21 percent of males had eaten ham in the past week vs. 18 percent of women, the survey found.

On the other hand, women were more likely to eat vegetables. For example, 35 percent of women reported eating carrots at least once in the past week, compared with 29 percent of men. Thirty-seven percent of women reported eating tomatoes, compared with 32 percent of men. The same difference held for fruits such as strawberries, raspberries and nuts. Women were also more likely to eat eggs and yogurt.

However, there were exceptions to the trend. Men were more likely than women to eat asparagus and brussels sprouts.

Gender also played a role when it came to mealtime risk-taking -- eating items that are more likely to transmit disease. For example, the survey found that men were more likely to eat rare hamburger or runny eggs; women were more likely to eat alfalfa sprouts, which have been linked to illness outbreaks in the past.

“The reason we looked at consumption and risky behaviors was to see if there was a statistically significant difference between men and women, and if there is, this information could be used by health educators to target interventions,” Shiferaw said.