A new study alleges that British women think about food more than sex, and that a significant minority think about it more than they think about their partners. Take this with a grain of salt, though — the study was conducted by Atkins.


According to the UK Press Association, the diet company surveyed 1,290 UK women, and found that 54% thought about food more than sex. Just over 37% thought about eating more than they thought about their significant others. And one in four women apparently put more effort into dieting than into their relationships, while one in ten would feel worse cheating on a diet than on a partner. Atkins nutritionist Linda O'Byrne responded to the findings by saying that "dieting should become part of a person's everyday lifestyle and not something people are constantly thinking about."

Presumably the Atkins folks think that can be achieved by adopting a regimen of bacon-wrapped Brie-wiches. But their findings aren't especially scientific. The food-sex comparison in particular is specious — since most people eat three times a day, and only the luckiest are fucking that often, it makes a certain amount of sense that food thoughts might take up more brainspace. And in order to really tell what women are thinking about, you'd have to track their thoughts throughout the day, not just ask them once (and even then, some of us might lie about the amount of time we spend, say, worrying about an alien invasion).


What the Atkins study really shows, if anything, is that women feel that they're thinking about dieting a lot — even more than they're thinking about love. And while I wouldn't advocate that women spend all their time worrying about their relationships, it probably beats worrying about their thighs. The solution to this, though, isn't the Atkins diet — it's eliminating our worldwide obsession with women's weight. And in that battle, Atkins is on the wrong side.

Women Muse Over Food More Than Sex [UK Press Association]