Covert surveillance of chocolate in hospital wards

Surely one of the most important pieces of academic research from the last year:

The survival time of chocolates on hospital wards: covert observational study

As The Independent reported:

A UK based study looking at chocolate consumption among hospital staff found chocolate only lasts for just under an hour before being eaten, with health care assistants and nurses being the most likely to delve into the nearest box of Quality Streets or Roses.

To conduct the experiment, the authors covertly placed two 350 g boxes of Quality Street and Roses chocolates on each ward (eight boxes containing a total of 258 individual chocolates). These boxes were kept under constant surveillance, with the time recorded when each chocolate was eaten…

Speaking to The Independent, [Dr Gajendragadkar] said: “One of the interesting findings from this study was the way the chocolates were eaten. As soon as boxes were opened the rate of consumption was really high at the start, but gradually slowed down later on when unpopular chocolates are left at the end. We actually managed to work out a mathematical formulae for this.”