The larger the glass, the greater the desire to drink
Last reviewed: 20.05.2018
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Specialists from Cambridge together with their colleagues from the University of Bristol found that the more a glass, the more a person's desire to drink. The researchers conducted their research in one of the restaurants in Cambridge, where they watched the visitors. The barman of the restaurant took part in the study, which to visitors who ordered wine, poured it into glasses, of different capacity, but at the same time, the cost of the order was the same. Visitors to the same amount of wine, but in glasses of different capacities - 250, 300 and 370 ml. As a result, scientists found that in large glasses people drank wine faster and ordered one more serving, on average, visitors who brought wine in glasses with a capacity of 370 ml drank 10% more, compared to visitors who drank from glasses of 250 and 300 ml.
According to experts, people who drank from large glasses, visually perceived a smaller amount of alcohol, which contributed to the desire to order another portion of wine.
Scientists suggest that an open feature will allow for a deeper exploration of the mechanisms of the development of alcohol dependence and, perhaps, the authorities will decide to legislatively prohibit the use of large glasses in restaurants and cafes in order to reduce the number of alcohol addicts. Alcohol abuse is a serious problem in many countries, alcohol in large quantities often provokes the development of serious diseases such as diabetes, cancer, liver damage, so a new study is important for public health in all countries.
The plans of the research group to conduct a repeat experiment, but simultaneously in several restaurants, so that the results are more reliable.
It is worth noting that such a study was conducted not for the first time, earlier scientists already found the relationship between the size of a plate or a glass and the amount of eaten or drunk. As a result, the conclusions were approximately the same: the more dishes, the more a person eats or drinks.
Quite the opposite result was obtained by researchers from the California Polytechnic University, who concluded that from a large plate and at a large table a person eats less - but in this study, scientists used pieces of pizza of various sizes. According to the Californian experts, at a large table a person ceases to distinguish between the sizes of a pizza, perceiving everything as large, as a result, a smaller portion of food is eaten.
Alcohol, in large glasses or small glasses still represents a threat to health. In the UK, scientists came to the conclusion that wine does more harm to the body than vodka, despite the fact that the strength of drinks is significantly different (in wine about 12%, in vodka - 40% alcohol).
According to scientists, it is the different strength of beverages that leads to the false idea that wine is less harmful, in fact this is one of the reasons for the development of alcohol dependence. Many residents of Britain use wine daily and consider this to be the norm, it is possible that such an attitude towards alcohol and led to the fact that the country occupies the second place in the disease with cirrhosis of the liver.