It's a well-known fact that certain colors increase your hunger. Let's be honest, the McDonald's logo doesn't look the way it does because red and yellow make a stellar color combo. But according to researchers, when dining out your server's physique may also be a cause for you to order more liberally.
As if dining out wasn't already expensive and carb-y enough, a new study by Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab found that overweight waiters may lead us to order more than we should.
The study, which was conducted by Lab director, Brian Wansink and Tim Döring of Friedrich Schiller University in Germany aimed to observe if restaurant-goer's choices were influenced by their server's body mass index (in plain English, BMI = a measure of weight in relation to height). Trained students observed 497 customer-server interactions at casual full-service American restaurants like Applebee's and TGI Fridays. The students estimated whether the BMI's of the servers and customers were above 25 (the BMI cutoff for being overweight) and observed what customers ordered.
The results were pretty damning. According to the study customers who had a server with a BMI above 25 were 4 times more likely to order dessert and 17.65 % more likely to order alcoholic drinks. Even more shocking was how much stronger the effect was on people who were actually skinny.
"A heavy waiter or waitress seems to have an even bigger influence on the skinniest diners," Mr.Döring toldWSJ
While the researchers can only speculate about why this link exists they think having a slightly bigger waiter simply makes customers feel more free to keep the sugar and booze coming.
The good news for us mere mortals is that this study, along with others done by the Cornell Food and Brand Lab that show how unconscious factors act against our will power, proves that sometimes those cravings are just out of our control.
So what's the best way to fight your waiter's mind-controlling powers? Simply decide ahead of time if you actually want to order that cheesecake. Or, you know, YOLO.
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