If you find yourself gaining a few pounds here and there, don’t worry. That’s just a sign that you are happily married to your spouse. As a matter of fact, there’s a new study that suggests the more weight you gain during your marriage, the happier you and your partner are as a couple.

The couple that grow fat together stay together, right? Well now you can tell everyone that science made you do it as a new study reveals that there’s more that your ‘love handles’ are there for a reason. Researchers from Southern Methodist University in Dallas joined 169 newlywed couples and found out quite a few interesting things. But first, they had the couples in the study share information about their height, weight marital satisfaction, stress, and steps towards divorce eight different times.

The result? Couples who felt happier in their marriage were less likely to watch their weight. In other words, they didn’t really have a reason to 'look good' or attract a new mate because they were satisfied in the relationship they were currently in.

“Satisfaction is positively associated with weight gain,” says lead researcher, Andrea Meltzer . “Spouses who are more satisfied tend to gain more weight, and spouses who are less satisfied tend to gain less weight.”

So does this mean that letting ourselves go is a good idea, especially if we’ve been married for a long time? Not necessarily. It just means that we are not paying attention to some of the snacks that we are eating throughout the day. It’s a sign that happy couples love to pig out on the couch (popcorn and skittles anyone?) while watching Netflix or Hulu or they simply find themselves eating their children’s leftovers throughout their busy day.

Co-researcher Stephanie Schoeppe put it this way, “When Couples don’t need to look attractive and slim to attract a partner, they may feel more comfortable in eating more, or eating more foods high in fat and sugar. When couples have children in the household, they tend to eat the children’s leftovers or snacks.”

As the saying goes, love is blind and especially when you are searching for a late night snack in the fridge in a dark kitchen. As long as the scale in the bathroom remains broken, we have a feeling that chubbier couples will always be the happiest couples. Plus when you are well fed, no one has a reason to complain.

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