Over morning coffee, NPR listeners recently learned about eating habits that were discovered right here in Indiana, Pennsylvania. You can see the full story in The Salt, NPR’s food blog, which describes research by two former students and two faculty members. It suggests the gender of your dining company can influence what you eat.

Molly Allen-O’Donnell ’04, M’06, Marci Cottingham M’09, Kay Snyder, and Tom Nowak of the IUP Sociology Department collaborated on “Impact of Group Composition and Gender on Meals Purchased by College Students,” which was published in September in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

The research shows that men and women both eat less when in the presence of men. Read or listen to NPR’s coverage. UPDATE: ABC News also has covered the issue and has cited the research done by Allen-O’Donnell, Cottingham, Snyder, and Nowak.

Nowak and Snyder retired in the summer. Currently, Allen-O’Donnell, whose bachelor’s degree is in Nutrition, is a social worker at Helpmates, Inc., in Ridgway, Pa. Cottingham is a graduate student at the University of Akron.