Eating like you are overweight: the effect of overweight models on food intake in a remote confederate study

•Modelling of food intake was examined in young females.•Participants ate more if they believed others had eaten a large amount of food.•Both over and normal weight models exerted a similar effect on food intake.•Healthy weight females will sometimes copy how much overweight females eat.

There is consistent evidence that people model the eating behaviour of others. The extent to which people model the amount of food consumed by other people of different weight statuses has received less attention. Here we tested the effect on food consumption of exposing female participants to information about the food consumption of either normal/healthy weight or overweight individuals. Eighty female participants took part in a between-subjects experiment, in which we used a remote-confederate design and manipulated whether participants saw intake information about normal/healthy weight or overweight previous participants (remote confederates). Regardless of the weight-status of the remote confederates, participants ate more food when they believed that previous participants had eaten a large amount of food, in comparison with when they believed previous participants had eaten a smaller amount of food. These findings indicate that women may model the food intake of other women, even when they believe they are of a different weight status to themselves.