The University of Westminster has found that men prefer chubbier partners when they go looking for love on an empty stomach.

Research conducted by the university also recorded evidence of the effect in women, but it is more pronounced in men.

Using a sample of 266 heterosexual men in various stages of hunger, psychologist Dr Viren Swami showed a series of female cartoons and asked the participants to rate the images in terms of sexual desirability.

The hungrier men "opted for bigger women with larger breasts", reports the Daily Telegraph. According to Swami, "you could really see a difference in the preferences of those who hadn't eaten".

A larger body indicates an abundance of food and a steady source of sustenance, factors which Swami said are likely to prove particularly appealing to hungry people in search of a mate.

The study found that the additional male desire for more voluptuous women tended to wear off after a good meal.

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/health-science/58863/hungry-men-prefer-to-date-bigger-women#ixzz36k6DFYir

What about before and after a few glass of vino?... or before and after church? 

SHOWN CARTOONS?

It's often said that today's children will have shorter average life spans than their parents, because so many suffer from obesity. But there is another view that says they will live longer - at the risk of spending their twilight years in poor health.

The idea that children alive today will die younger than their parents has been popularised by Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver - but the assertion that they "may on average, live less healthy and possibly even shorter lives than their parents" originates in scholarly research.

Not all experts are convinced, however.

It's true that the number of people who are obese now is higher than in the past. Figures published in the Lancet earlier this year put the figure at 2.1bn worldwide, up from 875 million in 1980.

...

It's also true that obesity-related illnesses have been on the rise. It was reported this week that the UK is suffering a "national health emergency" because of the numbers being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, an illness which is often linked to obesity.

But the risk of dying from heart attacks and strokes, both associated with obesity, is in fact lower than in previous decades, according to a leading expert in the field.

"If you take Britain as an example, the probability of dying from the sorts of things caused by being overweight has gone down by a factor of four," says Sir Richard Peto, professor of medical statistics at Oxford University.

read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28191865

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The risk of dying may have gone down by a factor of four BUT THE RISK OF getting a heart attack for being obese might have gone up by a factor of three —  though you may not die from it "because of medical progress"...

Australians are smoking and drinking less but are getting fatter and more anxious, according to a new state of the nation study.

In what is the first quarterly report to focus on the health of the nation, the study by Roy Morgan Research suggests Australia's anxiety might be driven by rising unemployment rates.

Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine says smoking incidence and alcohol consumption have reduced, despite three in five Australians still being overweight.

"It's to do with the fact there's been a very strong anti-smoking campaign and anti-smoking lobby with increased taxes and a focus on plain labels," she said.

"The reduction in alcohol consumption ... I think we've actually seen, again, a fairly strong anti-drink-driving campaign. And there's been enough information to get people to curb their drinking. The only one form of alcohol that's actually increasing is cider."

But three in five Australian adults are overweight, with a body mass index (BMI) over 25, hot on the heels of the United States.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-09/australians-fatter-and-more-anxious3a-report/5583030

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Getting more anxious?... Well, with Tony Abbott at the helm of this fair country, would you not be anxious, afraid or become nutso-choleric, about to smash a vase or sumpthin' in your lounge room?

I am waiting for the day when on retirement from politics — hopefully very soon, like tomorrow, by being unceremoniously booted out or with a wedgie to his budgies — that our long-long-long nose Tonicchio gets an honorary professorship at a university of some sort for his contribution to the sciences of humanities, by showing how the antithesis of humanities works for ningnongs. That would be a hoot. But he might get a chair for economics... or become the chairman of the IPA...

Anxious?... Anxiousness makes people eat more to quell the nervousness. Yep, Blame Tony Abbott...