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shape of glass affects fluid calorie intake



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 31st, 2003, 06:58 PM
Doug Skrecky
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Default shape of glass affects fluid calorie intake

Shape Of Beverage Glass Influences How Much People Pour And Drink

Champaign, Ill. -- Your eyes play tricks. And your brain makes it worse.
Both teenagers and adults misjudge how much they pour into glasses. They
will pour more into short wide glasses than into tall slender glasses,
but perceive the opposite to be true. The delusion of shape even influences
experienced bartenders, though to a lesser degree, a researcher at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found. How shape can alter
a person's notion of size has been widely investigated. For instance,
triangles are generally perceived to be larger than squares, and
horizontal shapes are seen as smaller than vertical objects of identical
volume. Yet research examining the effects of shape on how people
determine how much they consume is limited, said Brian Wansink, a
professor of marketing and nutritional science at Illinois. To understand
the process better, Wansink examined how shape influences teenagers,
adults and bartenders who pour beverages into empty glasses.
The results of his study will be published in the December issue of the
Journal of Consumer Research.
Wansink, director of the Food & Brand Lab at Illinois, conducted three
tests. In the first, he looked at how much juice 97 teenagers poured for
themselves during breakfast at a summer camp in New Hampshire. The male
and female campers, 12 to 17, with an average age of 15, had come to the
camp to learn about nutrition and lose weight. They were taught about
dieting and portion control in daily lectures and demonstrations. Upon
entering the cafeteria line for breakfast on the ninth day, the campers
were randomly given a tall and short glass of identical capacity in which
to pour their orange juice. The tall glass was slightly less than twice
the height of the small glass. The teenagers poured 76.4 percent more
orange juice in the short, wide glasses than in the tall glasses (9.7
ounces versus 5.5 ounces). Although the girls poured less juice in their
glasses than the boys, both groups equally overpoured in the short, wide
glasses.
When questioned by Wansink's team, however, the teenagers believed that
they had poured less (7 ounces) into the short, wide glasses, and more
(7.5 ounces) in the tall, slender glasses. This mistaken impression
translated into drinking more juice when placed in the short glass, with
97 percent of all campers finishing the juice they had poured.
The psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) believed that young children
tended to be caught and fixed by the vertical dimension of a visual
field. Piaget thought that as they grew up humans developed strategies to
isolate and better compare vertical and horizontal dimensions. But the
tendency to overestimate the vertical dimension persisted in a second
experiment conducted by Wansink. He used the same basic procedure of the
teenager study to measure how much juice was poured by 89 adults eating
breakfast at a camp in western Massachusetts. The group ranged from 16 to
82, with an average age of 37. The adults poured and consumed 19.2
percent more juice in the short wide glass than in the tall slender glass
(6.8 ounces versus 5.7 ounces). "These results were consistent with
Piaget's notion that older people are less likely to focus their
attention merely on the vertical dimension and are better able to account
for the other dimensions as well. Still age did not eliminate the
elongation effect," Wansink wrote. The adults, like the teenagers,
mistakenly perceived that they had poured less into the wide glasses than
into tall, slender glasses. Seventy-nine percent of the adults given the
wide, short glasses underestimated how much they poured, as compared with
17 percent of those given tall glasses.
When informed of the overpouring, most of the adults expressed surprise.
"We heard remarks like 'You're kidding' and 'Can you weigh it and show
me?' which is consistent with the general lack of awareness by
participants of how much they actually poured," Wansink said in an interview.
In a final study, Wansink examined how accurately bartenders could
estimate drink volumes. He asked 45 bartenders in Philadelphia to pour
1.5 ounces of liquor into drink glasses. Half the bartenders were given
slender highball glasses, and the others had short tumbler glasses. Each
glass held 12 ounces. The bartenders were asked to pour rum for a rum and
Coke, whiskey for a whiskey on the rocks and vodka for a vodka tonic. On
average, the bartenders poured 31.3 percent more into the tumbler glass
than into the highball glass (2.1 ounces versus 1.6 ounces). Less
experienced bartenders tended to overpour more (2.2 ounces in tumblers
versus 1.6 ounces in highball glasses), but even bartenders with an
average of nine years of experience poured 1.8 ounces in the short glass
compared with 1.7 ounces in the tall glass.
There are various policy implications in these findings, according to
Wansink. The tricks of the eye and brain could play havoc with dieters
seeking to monitor and better control food and beverage consumption.
"Because people believe there is greater capacity in a tall, slender
glass, they will pour less into it, but thinking the opposite with a
short, wide glass, will keep pouring," the researcher said. Aside from
overconsumption of alcohol, inadvertent overpouring of medications and
over-the-counter drugs could pose a potential health risk.
Wansink's paper is titled "Bottoms Up! The Influence of Elongation on
Pouring and Consumption Volumes."
  #2  
Old November 2nd, 2003, 07:05 PM
Partial Eclipse Of The Mu_n
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Default shape of glass affects fluid calorie intake

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:58:40 +0000 (UTC), Doug Skrecky
wrote:

Shape Of Beverage Glass Influences How Much People Pour And Drink


Every decent bar in the world knows this intuitively.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970827.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.
  #3  
Old November 3rd, 2003, 08:57 AM
Dr. Andrew. B. Chung, MD/PhD
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Default shape of glass affects fluid calorie intake

Partial Eclipse Of The Mu_n wrote:

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:58:40 +0000 (UTC), Doug Skrecky
wrote:

Shape Of Beverage Glass Influences How Much People Pour And Drink


Every decent bar in the world knows this intuitively.


You told me you preferred the indecent bars. Perhaps I misunderstood.

--
Dr. Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Bored-Stiff Cardiologician
http://www.heartmdphd.com

  #4  
Old November 3rd, 2003, 01:48 PM
Carol Frilegh
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Default shape of glass affects fluid calorie intake

In article , Dr. Andrew. B. Chung,
MD/PhD wrote:

Partial Eclipse Of The Mu_n wrote:

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:58:40 +0000 (UTC), Doug Skrecky
wrote:

Shape Of Beverage Glass Influences How Much People Pour And Drink


Every decent bar in the world knows this intuitively.


You told me you preferred the indecent bars. Perhaps I misunderstood.


He meant "bras."

--
Diva
*****
The Best Man for the Job May Be A Woman
  #5  
Old November 3rd, 2003, 04:25 PM
Partial Eclipse Of The Mu_n
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default shape of glass affects fluid calorie intake

On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 02:57:07 -0500, "Dr. Andrew. B. Chung, MD/PhD"
wrote:

Partial Eclipse Of The Mu_n wrote:

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:58:40 +0000 (UTC), Doug Skrecky
wrote:

Shape Of Beverage Glass Influences How Much People Pour And Drink


Every decent bar in the world knows this intuitively.


You told me you preferred the indecent bars. Perhaps I misunderstood.



http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970827.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.
 




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