It has long been known that a variety of factors influence the volume of orders in a restaurant: the right atmosphere, music, lighting … And recently it turned out that the appearance of the waiter, or rather, his weight, can also play a role.
Psychologist Tim Döring from Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) and marketer, professor at Cornell University (USA) Brian Wansink conducted a study during which they observed a total of 497 examples of customer interactions with waiters in 60 various American restaurants. At the same time, the observers approximately estimated the body proportions and BMI (body mass index) of the waiters and customers, and also noted what exactly and in what quantity the visitors ordered.
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Analysis of the collected data showed that the weight of the waiter influenced how many servings the visitors ordered – the more stout the waiter, the greater the order volume.1. For example, if a waiter’s BMI was over 25, customers were 4 times more likely to take dessert and 18% more likely to take alcoholic drinks. (A BMI above 25 is generally considered overweight, although there are some exceptions for people who are very muscular.) This pattern did not depend on factors such as ethnicity, gender, age, weight and height separately (BMI shows the ratio of height and weight and is calculated by the formula: weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared).
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The researchers suggest that restaurant diners ate and drank more in the presence of fat waiters because they “set social norms” – that is, the very sight of them was subconsciously perceived by customers as a kind of “permission” to eat enough.
It is noteworthy that restaurateurs often prefer to hire slender waiters. In the US, some waiters who were fired because they were overweight even sued former employers for discrimination.
Brian Wansink runs the Nutritional Psychology Laboratory at Cornell University and has been researching the factors that influence eating behavior for many years. Studies in his lab, for example, have shown that restaurants with loud music and bright lighting tend to eat more on average in a shorter period of time than those in similar establishments that have a more relaxed atmosphere of light music and soft lighting.2.
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Another interesting experiment showed how satiety depends on psychological factors – visitors, on whose plates the soup was imperceptibly poured, on average ate 73% more. At the same time, they did not notice that they ate more, and did not feel oversaturation compared to those who ate soup from regular bowls.3.
1 T. Döring, В. Wansink «The Waiters Weight: Does a Servers BMI Relate to How Much Food Diners Order?», Environment and Behavior, December 2015.
2 B. Wansink, K. Van Ittersum «Fast Food Restaurant Lighting and Music Can Reduce Calorie Intake and Increase Satisfaction», Psychological Reports: Human Resources & Marketing, vol. 111, № 1, August 2012.
3 В. Watsink et al. «Bottomless bowls: why visual cues of portion size may influence intake», Obesity Research, January 2005.