They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

And it seems that even after a woman has charmed her husband, she just can’t resist feeding him up.

A study commissioned by the Men’s Health Forum has shown that getting married can change men’s eating habits and their waistlines, The Daily Mail reported.

A team of researchers from Leeds Metropolitan University found that married men are fatter than their single counterparts.

This could be because they develop a sweet tooth – with married men treating themselves to more buns, cakes, pastries and fruit pies than single men.

And those who have tied the knot were also likely to drink ‘significantly’ more wine, the study found.

Scientists were not sure why marriage made such a difference to men’s attitude to their weight, but one suggestion was that they felt they could relax after their wedding day.

Another theory was that men who marry a good cook might find they are eating richer food than in the past.

Cakes, buns and other treats could also be in easy reach if they have a wife with a sweet tooth doing the shopping.

And the study even suggested that some wives deliberately overfeed their husbands, with the aim of making them less attractive to other women.

Previous research has found that women also pile on the pounds after getting married.