Glassware design and drinking behaviours: a review of impact and mechanisms using a new typology of drinking behaviours

Abstract

Much of the global burden of disease is attributable to unhealthy behaviour, including excessive consumption of alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages. Developing effective methods to change these drinking behaviours could inform policies to improve population health. In line with an increasing interest in environmental-level interventions - i.e., changing the environment in which a behaviour occurs in order to change the behaviour of interest - this review first describes the existing evidence of the impact of glassware design (including capacity and shape) on drinking behaviours (e.g., at the 'micro' level - including sip size, as well as at the macro level - including amount consumed). The roles of two sets of possible underlying mechanisms - perception and affordance - are also explored. Finally, this review sets out a provisional typology of drinking behaviours to enable more systematic approaches to the study of these behaviours. While there is a paucity of evidence - in particular on measures of consumption - this growing evidence base suggests promising targets for novel interventions involving glassware design to reduce the consumption of drinks that harm health.Trial registration: ISRCTN.org identifier: ISRCTN10456720.

Keywords: Choice architecture; affordance; drinking; glassware design; micro-drinking behaviours; perceptual effects.

Figure 1.

Logic model to organise evidence on the impacts of drinks containers on micro- and macro- drinking behaviours, with two proposed mechanisms: perception and affordance.

Figure 2.

Image to depict the midpoints of 330 ml portions in outward-sloped and straight-sided glasses, as in Langfield et al. (2018) and Langfield et al. (2020).

Figure 3.

Plots to show affordance by glass shape of volume remaining (%) by angle of tilt. ‘A’ illustrates the relationship with glass dimensions as used by Langfield et al., ; Study 1 (Langfield et al., 2020). ‘B’ illustrates the relationship with more extreme dimensions.