Fat Waiters Get Fat Orders

It’s true, maybe. The fatter your waiter, the more likely you are to order lots of food, and yes, drink. In fact, researchers at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab have determined that diners who ordered their dinner from heavier wait staff were four times more likely to order dessert, and ordered 17 percent more alcohol. A Cornell news release reports that the study, published in the current the journal Environment and Behavior, observed 497 diners ordering in dinner in  casual American restaurants – like Applebee’s and TGI-Friday’s.  It then compared each customer’s order and Body Mass Index (height and weight ratio) to the BMI of the person who waited on them. The researchers found that heavy waiters an even bigger influence on the skinniest diners. What to do?  “Deciding that you’ll have either an appetizer or a dessert – but not both –before you get to the restaurant could be one of your best diet defenses,” suggests coauthor Brian Wansink, Ph.D., Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and author of Slim by Design. What fun is that?