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The Waiter’s Weight Matters...


Dean Pomerleau

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All I can say is that people are zombies when it comes to food choices...

 

From [1]:

 

Diners ordered significantly more items when served by heavy wait staff with high body mass indexes (BMI; p < .001) compared with wait staff with low body mass indexes. Specifically, they were four times as likely to order desserts (p < .01),...

 

In this popular press article on the study, the author says:

 

“A fun, happy, heavy waiter, might lead a diner to say ‘What the heck’ and to cut loose a little.”

 

--Dean

 

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[1] The Waiter’s Weight - Does a Server’s BMI Relate to How Much Food Diners Order?

 

Tim Döring1
Brian Wansink2⇑
1Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
2Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Brian Wansink, Cornell University, 475 Warren Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-7801, USA. Email: fblsubmissions@cornell.edu

 

http://eab.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/29/0013916515621108.abstract

Abstract

 

Does the weight of a server have an influence on how much food diners order in the high-involvement environment of a restaurant? If people are paying for a full meal, this has implications for consumers, restaurants, and public health. To investigate this, 497 interactions between diners and servers were observed in 60 different full-service restaurants. Diners ordered significantly more items when served by heavy wait staff with high body mass indexes (BMI; p < .001) compared with wait staff with low body mass indexes. Specifically, they were four times as likely to order desserts (p < .01), and they ordered 17.65% more alcoholic drinks (p < .01). These findings provide valuable evidence in recent lawsuits against weight discrimination, and it suggests to consumers who decide what they will and will not order at a restaurant—such as a salad appetizer, no dessert, and one drink—than to decide when the waiter arrives.

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Zombies or people under peer pressure? Sometimes when I hang out with some fatty friends they poke fun at my skin and bones. Innocent humor or deep underlying resentment: "Aww cmon, Sthira, relax, enjoy the damned bread..." And then I twist and squirm and start dreaming about swimming free in the deep ocean with my stingray friends. People: humph. But I must say no chubby waiter has ever guilted me into more gooey luscious food slop. Friends have though, and relatives...

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Sthira,

 

Sometimes when I hang out with some fatty friends they poke fun at my skin and bones...

 

I'm impressed. I thought you didn't have any friends.  ;)xyz

 

 

And then I twist and squirm and start dreaming about swimming free in the deep ocean with my stingray friends. People: humph. But I must say no chubby waiter has ever guilted me into more gooey luscious food slop. Friends have though, and relatives...

 

You're a real poet Sthira. I love your metaphors.

 

Years ago I made it a habit to eat out with my family and even have a dessert with them at the end of the meal (before I went vegan). I found the dessert part too difficult - I'd end up obsessing about what I was going to order for several days ahead of time, and then feeling badly about it afterwards.

 

--Dean

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^^^ yeah I did that, too. Until family finally disappeared. Trying to be normal is very hard. Because I say, well, really, no thank you, that's sweet of you to offer that, but I'm sorry I really don't... But sometimes we absolutely 100% must eat that stuff due to the moment. A romantic true confession: I ate a mooses' heart one time because I had to.

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