Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay may not know best, at least when it comes to your waistline. If you try to emulate your favorite celebrity chefs, according to findings in the journal Appetite, those cooking shows may be making you fat. Cornell University researchers reported that women who get their recipes from TV cooking programs and cooked from scratch weighed an average 11 pounds more than those who watched but didn’t follow up in the kitchen. (Most studies show people who cook from scratch are less likely to be overweight.) Cooking recipes from TV shows was also associated with a higher BMI, 27.48 versus 25.66, among the study’s 501 women, ages 20-35. Cooking from scratch with recipes sourced from print or online, however, was not associated with greater weight or BMI.
The researchers commented, “Watching chefs prepare indulgent dishes on TV, watching a famous host enjoy over-the-top foods with other people all over the country… might suggest a social norm for preparing these types of foods.”