Sharing your food makes you fatter, study claims

published 13 January 2022

Sharing your food can make you put on more weight, a study has claimed. A team of Canadian students found that people are less aware of the calories they are consuming when they eat from sharing plates. Diners do not feel as if they “own” the food and end up “mentally decoupling the calories from their consequences”, the researchers found.

Oldest tortoise ever honoured

Jonathan the Giant Tortoise, the world’s oldest living land animal, has earned another Guinness World Records title. Celebrating his 190th birthday this year, Jonathan is now the oldest tortoise ever. The previous oldest turtle was Tu’i Malila, who lived to be at least 188. Presented to the royal family of Tonga by Captain Cook in the 1700s, Tu’i Malila remained in their care until its death in 1965.

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Marks & Spencer has changed the name of its Midget Gems sweets to avoid offending people with dwarfism. The high street chain has rebranded the sweets Mini Gems after a leading disability studies academic warned it that “midget” can be a “highly problematic” term. Campaigners have also demanded that Amazon removes novelty items from its website that use the term “midget”, including I Love Midgets key rings and T-shirts.

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.

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