Ponder this situation: Two college students, one male and one female, sit down in a restaurant together to have dinner. When the waitress comes, one orders a steak sandwich, french fries, and a coke while the other orders a caesar salad and water. Without any further explanation, I, and I assume most other people, would feel confident in knowing with some degree of certainty which person ordered which meal, but why is this distinction so obvious? Both people had the same menu and the same choices; however, it is undeniable to me that there are characteristic eating habits for men and women that show up often in everyday life and govern food choice. Thinking back to every meal I have attended with a female, I realize that the vast majority of the time I have chosen the larger and/or unhealthier dish. I have never really stopped to think about it, but now that I do the concept is quite intriguing: It is an unusual idea to think about fundamental or biological factors governing men and women to desire different foods. Physical makeup and activity might influence the portion size of men vs. women, but that does not explain a general difference in taste. Because of this I think that gender difference in eating habits is probably more of a social issue than anything else and can be effectively examined using sociology. Therefore, my broad research question is: Does a difference in gender correlate to a difference in eating habits and desires?.
In order for this to be a valid research question, I must first verify that other people have discussed or thought about this issue before. This is to be certain that my idea is not a strange phenomenon only occurring in my personal life and that it is a worthy topic to spend time on. To my relief, there is a multitude of evidence for the claim that men and women eat differently, and many different people have researched that claim. In my literature search I even found a cookbook entitled "Meals men like.
