Jonah Lehrer ponders a new study that suggests "one of the factors causing us to consume too much food is a lack of social status, as we try to elevate ourselves by supersizing meals":
Think, for instance, of the alpha males in those David Attenborough specials on television – the most powerful animal is the one who eats the most, getting access to the felled antelope before anyone else. Or think of all the cultural norms that associate larger products with increased status, from the screen size of televisions to the square footage of houses. In category after category, bigger isn’t just better – it’s also far more prestigious, a signal that we can afford to splurge on spare rooms we’ll never use.
Erica Grieder is skeptical:
People with huge houses typically have more money than people with modest ones, Warren Buffett aside. With food, it's often the opposite. A more intuitive explanation of the phenomenon Galinsky et al describe, I think, would be that the people who are reminded about a time when they felt powerless are therefore feeling sad or self-indulgent or trying to comfort themselves with food (the kummerspeck the Germans talk about.)
The Dish 