Study: 70% of Moms’ Nutritional Needs Met by Bites of Other People’s Food

A new study released today by the the National Institutes of Health finds that 70% of American mothers’ nutritional needs are met by bites of food other people ordered.

The study found that mothers consumed the majority of their daily calories within 10 minutes of saying, “I’ll just have a bite,” or responding enthusiastically to a family member’s polite but insincere offer, “Does anyone want to try this?”

“There’s really no reason for most moms to order their own entrees,” said Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, while crawling through the mud under barbed wire in his OR scrubs. “Our research found that most moms found a way to split dishes with two people at the table who did not want to share their meals.” The moms then went on, he reported, to eat “75 percent of the food on each plate, responding to polite requests to return the dish to the person who ordered it with, ‘just one more bite!’”

Murthy’s team also found that moms’ protestations that they did not want to order desert in no way hindered their ability to consume after-dinner sweets. They begged off placing their own orders by claiming, “I’ll just try a little of yours,” or “I don’t want to order a whole slice of S’more pie,” but then went on to consume more than the people who actually ordered.