Men still think about sex more often than women do -- but nowhere near the amount often attributed to them, a recent study finds.

Every seven seconds. That's the popular notion of how often men think about sex. But researchers at Ohio State University say that's not even close. Rather than thousands of such thoughts daily, their study found that among college-age participants, men think of sex, on average, about 19 times per day, compared to 10 times a day for women.

"It's amazing the way people will spout off these fake statistics that men think about sex nearly constantly and so much more often than women do," said lead author Terri Fisher, a professor of psychology.

Over 180 students participated in the study, recording their thoughts about sex, sleeping and eating every day for one week. A person's comfort level with sex may better predict how often they think about sex than their gender, researchers said. Individual responses varied greatly, ranging between one and 388 thoughts of sex per day for men, for example.

Researchers also found that men thought about food nearly as often as sex: 18 times per day. Thoughts of sleep came in third, at 11 times per day. Women thought about food 15 times per day, and sleep about 9 times per day.