How much food you order may depend on server's weight

You may think that how much food you order in a restaurant depends on how hungry you are, think again.

According to researchers at Cornell University, the weight of your server at a restaurant may actually play a role in how much food you order.

They examined customers in 60 restaurants and found that people that were served by heavier waiters or waitresses were four times more likely to order desserts.

Meanwhile these customers also decided to order 17% more alcohol. The study also shows that heavier servers had the most influence over the skinniest customers.

Tim Doering, researcher at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and lead author of the study, said: "No one goes to a restaurant to start a diet. As a result, we are tremendously susceptible to cues that give us a license to order and eat what we want."

Adding: "A fun, happy, heavy waiter, might lead a diner to say 'What the heck' and to cut loose a little."

It wasn't just the size of waiters and waitresses that had an effect on diners though. Lighting, music and where you sit in the restaurant can also make a difference to what you order.

A new Channel 4 programme also recently revealed how your appearance could affect the seat you are given in a restaurant.

'Tricks of the Restaurant Trade' experimented with different people to see how treatment changed.

They found that while two models were given seats at the front of the restaurant, the show's host Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis, was either given a seat at the back or told there were no tables available.