Well that explains it...

We've been receiving The Week magazine compliments of Beta Gamma Sigma. Sometimes, I even read it (like if I'm avoiding housework or homework or something.) Anyway, an article caught my eye:

Thinking can make you fat

Thinking makes you hungry, and thinking really hard makes you really hungry. That's the conclusion of a new study that found one explanation for why people in sedentary, white-collar jobs often gain a lot of weight. In a study at Laval University in Quebec, groups of students were given tasks that required either deep thought, relaxed thought, or no attention whatsoever. After the tasks, the volunteers were offered a snack. The relaxed testers just nibbled, but the thinkers ate as if they'd spent the day plowing the fields; the moderate-brain-activity group consume 203 more calories than the resting group, and the deep thinkers ate 253 more. Scientists found that while the brain is working hard, stress hormones in the body cause blood glucose levels to fluctuate, inducing feelings of hunger. That phenomenon is not good for waistlines, given that the thinking sessions consume only about three calories more than resting. Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact that we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialized countries.

OK, this totally explains what's happened to me during the last year.

My only question is, since we're such a brilliant family, why aren't we fatter?