Being in a relationship really does seem to make you fatter

A couple eating food

Couples tend to smoke and drink less but put on weight

Silvia Jansen/Getty

You really do put on weight in a relationship. A massive study has found that couples tend to have healthier lifestyles than single people, but that doesn’t stop them from piling on the pounds.

To investigate the links between relationship status and health, Stephanie Schoeppe, at Central Queensland University in Australia, and her colleagues analysed a decade of survey data from over 15,000 volunteers. Each person had answered questions about their lifestyle choices, such as how active they were, how much fast …