New Study Suggests Women Who Cook From Food Shows Are Fatter

Anyone who has ever watched Paula Deen or Guy Fieri will not be surprised by this news, but nevertheless, here it is: researchers have found that women who watched cooking shows and tried those recipes for themselves had higher BMIs than women who just watched the shows but didn’t do any cooking.

For the study, published in the journal Appetite, researchers interviewed 501 women between 20 and 35 and found that “obtaining food information from cooking shows was associated with a higher BMI,” and also that “watching food TV and cooking frequently from scratch was related to a higher BMI.” As NPR reports:

“In terms of weight, those who watched cooking shows and cooked frequently from scratch had a mean weight of 164 lbs,” according to the paper. By comparison, women who watched the shows but didn’t cook much from scratch weighed, on average, about 153 lbs.

That’s an 11-pound difference between the “doers” (the women watching and cooking) compared with the viewers (the women who watched but didn’t cook.)

The study found that cooking recipes found via social media also correlated with a higher BMI, but “obtaining information from other print, online, or in-person sources was not significantly associated with BMI.”

There are a lot of things at play here, though it probably won’t surprise anyone that a lot of the delicious stuff you see on television isn’t always the healthiest. But since stuff you find online seems to be a-okay, might I suggest something like this next time you’re feeling hungry and want a light snack?