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Tip 5 - Drink To Good Health

11 February 2009

Drinking Glasses Influence Our Fluid Intake

Drinking glasses, like crockery and cutlery, influence our consumption habits. If they're tall and slim we tend to pour less into them and consequently drink less; if they're short and wide we'll drink more. Strange but true!

We're not accurate at visually analysing the contents of a glass, unfortunately. This is particularly true of short, wide glasses; we incorrectly see the short, wide glass as not containing as much fluid as the tall, slim glass. Don't feel bad about it though, even highly experienced bartenders couldn't accurately pour a standard 'shot' into short, wide glasses in research studies!

This is bad news when it comes to high-energy drinks like soft drinks and juice - if we pour them into a short, wide glass we're more likely to drink more (and consume more calories) than if we pour them into a tall, slim glass. On the other hand, if we're drinking water a short, wide glass might be a good influence as it'd encourage us to drink a bit more water.

Convenience Increases Our Food And Drink Intake

If food and drinks are easy to access we'll eat more of them (learn more now about how convenience influences our diet). The potato chips at the front of the pantry will be grabbed and eaten before the healthy snacks at the back of the pantry. The same is true for drinks - convenient drinks will be consumed first. Simply shifting the location of an office water pitcher altered the water intake of office workers in one research study. The closer the water pitcher was to the office staff, the more water they drunk. We can use this knowledge to our advantage!

Practical Advice - Drinking For Healthy Living

Use these simple tips to encourage healthy eating and drinking:

Serve high-energy drinks like soft-drinks, alcohol and juice in tall, slim glasses to limit your intake;
Serve water in short, wide glasses to encourage greater intake;
Store high-energy drinks at the back of the fridge or in your basement/garage fridge so they are out of sight and out of mind;
Keep a pitcher of cool, refreshing water inside your fridge, near the front where it can easily be accessed by everyone in the household;
Always provide a pitcher of cool water on your dining table at main meals;
Keep a bottle of water (just standard tap water, nothing fancy) with you during the day;
Keep water on your desk at work - it's a visual reminder to drink regularly rather than waiting for thirst to appear;
Drink a glass or two of water 30 minutes before a main meal if you're trying to lose weight - the fluid in your gut may help to decrease your food intake at the main meal.

A Nutritionist's Perspective

I'm pretty good at carting my water bottle around with me, but often I don't fill it up in the morning and so I just have yesterday's dregs with me when I leave the house (disgusting but true, I'm ashamed to admit). Then when I feel like a drink there isn't enough in the bottle to quench my thirst, which kind of defeats the purpose of carting the jolly bottle around! From here on in, I'm going to make it a habit to fill up a fresh bottle of water first thing every morning, to put on my office desk.

We're not big on drinking juices or soft drinks in our household, usually. But, I've noticed that bottles of juice and sports drink are starting to creep into our kitchen fridge. I'm going to follow my own advice above and shift these bottles out to our garage fridge - a far less convenient location. And I'm definitely going to push the water thing by placing the water pitcher on the dinner table every night too.

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