Why do we find men more attractive when they’re eating cereal?

There’s a theory currently circulating social media suggesting that men are more attractive when they’re eating cereal. The first time I came across this trend I was transported back to watching ‘Jerry Maguire’ in the scene where Tom Cruise sits eating cereal while Renée Zellweger and her friend observed in adoration. I understand that a young Tom Cruise could be doing almost anything, and we would still find him attractive, but I hope I’ve managed to construct the same image in your mind that I had when I first heard this.

I decided to do some investigation. The responses were all quite similar. My sister put it nicely saying, and I quote, ‘I am ridiculously obsessed with cereal and men, so it’s like soft porn’. Good answer, but I think there’s more to it.

Something clearly makes cereal different from other foods we enjoy. It’s more than just enjoying watching people we love eating the food that we love. Cereal actually makes people more attractive than they are without cereal (someone tell Vogue!). A good comparison would be to compare the pleasure of seeing a man holding a puppy with him holding a baby. The former is a collaboration of two things we love; the latter is a pairing that enhances are understanding and admiration for the subject. The logic behind why we like seeing men with babies is simple: man with baby equals good father figure. But what’s the logic behind cereal?

Cereal is a food we eat in the comfort of our own home. It signifies the beginning and/or end of the day (or a cosy hungover weekend). There’s something intrinsically intimate and personal about eating cereal that’s proven in its absence from the vast majority of restaurant breakfast menus. To see someone eating cereal is therefore like being granted permission to enter one of the most intimate parts of said person’s daily routine, a moment in time restricted to those in one’s closest circle of trust.

Then there’s the messiness. The sloppy spoon-full of milk and something deliciously sweet and crunchy being transported from bowl to mouth in such a careless rushed fashion screams confidential. It represents a level of familiarity that we can’t help but find attractive because of its undeniable desirability. It’s like entering the next stage of dating; It goes ‘seeing each other’, becoming exclusive, watching them eat cereal, then becoming a serious couple. 

This led me to the question: why don’t we have cereal on a first date? Where’s the fine-dining cereal restaurants? The answer is there should never be one (although if there is please tell me!). To move cereal out of the private realm and into the public would inevitably spoil the magic. Once the intimacy and connotations with home is wiped away, so will be the iconic breakfast food’s charm and allure. So, if you’re planning on capitalising on this Tik Tok debate by opening a romantic fine-dining cereal restaurant; don’t. Doing so would not only ruin the fun for the rest of us, but it might also end up raising the cost of my shreddies!

Whether or not my theory is correct, the internet has decided that watching men eat cereal is undeniably sexy. So, I leave you with a new question: what cereal is the most or least sexy? Is it the concept of cereal itself or does branding influence its sex appeal? Do Weetabix have the same effect on our hearts as Coco Pops?

Esme Gordon-Craig