A study by researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) said women were more likely to take diet advice from the female gender than male folks.

“What we discovered in this research was that women are most persuaded by a healthy eating message when it comes from another woman rather than when it comes from a man,” said Tegan Cruwys from the University’s department of psychology.

“They [speakers] were of similar age, they both wore glasses, they were both wearing a lab coat and they were saying the same thing. So there was very little to actually distinguish the speakers,” said Cruwys.

“At the end of our experiment participants could click on a link to find out more about the Government's healthy eating initiative if they were interested… And when they’d heard a healthy eating message from a woman we had about 40 per cent of our participants click on that link…But when they got that exact same message from a man only 8 per cent of our participants clicked on the link.”

The content often decides which sex is more appealing and authoritative. Men might be dominant when it comes to talking about overall health, however when it comes to gender issues and weight reduction, women often tend to prefer women itself, she added.

“I think that means the Government’s healthy eating initiative needs to be sure [it comes from] a member of the community that it’s targeting, whether that community is Indigenous Australians or women or young people. On the other hand men like men speaking on gender issues for them like prostate cancer,” Cruwys said.