A new study published in the journal, Appetite, suggests there is not a hormonal reason for premenstrual women to crave chocolate. The research was based on the premise that if the craving for chocolate was in fact related to a premenstrual surge in hormones, postmenopausal women would display diminished cravings for chocolate. Although the researchers did find a small drop in chocolate cravings after menopause in their small sample of women, the drop was not as great as expected, if the cravings were related to premenstrual hormones. This suggests that women crave chocolate for some other reason. Perhaps the concept of PMS cravings is a social construct. Or maybe some women just like chocolate – as the researchers state, we’re only talking about one-quarter of U.S. women: “[A]bout half of American women crave chocolate, and approximately half of the cravers crave it specifically around the onset of menstruation.”

Here’s another possible conclusion: Maybe women aren’t a monolithic group one can make facile generalizations about.