Women More Receptive to Romantic Signals When They're Full, Study Says

To successfully woo a woman, men have to feed them. A new study showed that ladies become more receptive to romantic signals when they are full.

CNet reported that a new study discovered that women become more responsive to romantic signals sent to them when they are not hungry. The results of the study will be published in the December edition of the journal Appetite.

Alice Ely, a postdoctoral research fellow at UC San Diego School of Medicine’s Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research, led the study while she was taking her doctoral degree at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Her study stemmed from her other study that was published in the journal Obesity.

The earlier research observed women with a history of dieting and those who did not diet. They found that the female brain tends to change depending on particular food cues. Those who dieted before showed heightened reward circuitry when feeling full, as shown by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results.

Ely and her team expanded the study to determine how the female brain responds to romantic cues while in a fed and fasted state. The second study showed that the brains of those who had a history of dieting and those who never dieted presented the same responses to rewards after eating. The brain scans revealed that women who ate before being given romantic cues presented a greater activation of the brain areas responsible for perception and goal-directed behavior. In other words, women will respond better to romantic cues if they are in a fed state.

“The pattern of response was similar to historical dieter’s activation when viewing highly palatable food cues, and is consistent with research showing overlapping brain-based responses to sex, drugs and food,” Ely stated in a report by UC San Diego.

Ely’s findings also contracted various studies before that found people to be more sensitive to rewarding stimuli like drugs and money when they are hungry.

"In this case, they were more responsive when fed. This data suggests that eating may prime or sensitize young women to rewards beyond food. It also supports a shared neurocircuitry for food and sex,” Ely said.

The data further suggested that historical dieters are more at risk for weight gain, because their brain reward circuitry predisposed them to desire food more.

The findings may be useful in starting and improving relationships. More updates on Ely’s studies may surface in the following months.