Ordering food online is making you fat
By Harry Bradford, Huffington Post
Whether it’s newcomers like Seamless and grubHub or veterans like Apple and Starbucks, companies of all sorts are making it easier than ever to order and pay with as little human interaction as possible.
That might be convenient and faster, but it’s not great for our health.
Ordering food online from restaurants causes people to do two unhealthy things: order more food and choose items that are higher in calories. In fact, a 2012 study centered around a North Carolina pizza restaurant found that total calories in online orders were about 6 percent higher than phone orders. That came out to about 100 calories more per order, according to Ryan McDevitt, an assistant professor at Duke University Fuqua School Of Business and the author of the study.
So why do we order with more reckless abandon when we’re using our smartphones and laptops? McDevitt said these barriers to human interaction essentially also act as barriers to shame. If there’s no waiter, there’s no other person to make them feel guilty for making less-sensible choices.