Do you think you can tell how heavy a person is from what’s in their grocery cart, or vice versa?
If you are going grocery shopping in the next couple of days, try this experiment, which I do to keep myself entertained in line:
Try to spot something in the cart of the person that follows you that might have predicted whether their weight.
Disclaimer: Perhaps I’m biased because I was really heavy a couple of years ago and now I’m in the middle of the height-weight chart. So what catches my eye could easily be skewed by my own diet journey.
But basically what I have observed is that if someone is really heavy or skinny that they will have things in their cart that aren’t in mine that day that seem suggestive. Like the giant size cooking fat container, high fat cuts of meat, the with-cheese version of frozen dinners, and creamy deli salads. Or the opposite, flavored water to drink, flax cereal, celery.
If I had enough data, and if it confirmirmed my suspicions, I could write the world’s shortest diet book:
The Random Thin Person Diet*
Each time you turn a corner in the supermarket, check if the next person is thin or fat. If thin, put one thing in your basket that they have in theirs. If fat, remove one thing you both have in your baskets.
The end.
Actually, now that I think of it, data isn’t necessary to write a diet book
That doesn’t really work too well. For example, my boyfriend eats virtually nothing that is good for him. He likes all his foods fried, snacks on potato chips, drinks way too much coke and so on. He is 5’9" and weighs 140 pounds. He keeps his weight down by watching his portions and not eating when he’s not hungry. What he eats would tell you nothing about his size.
Ah yes, the old “Judge Someone’s Diet By What’s In Their Grocery Cart” game. Fun, and helps keep you entertained in those long checkout lines, but not terribly accurate. For example, I heavily shop the loss leader sales. So one week my grocery cart may consist primarily of fresh produce, cheese, and toilet paper. The next week, 20 jars of peanut butter and 5 pounds of butter. You might surmise, from looking at the latter, that my family is on the all-PB-and-butter diet, but no, I just like to buy in bulk when things go on sale, and because we stock up, I don’t need to buy everything every single week. (We also rely heavily on frozen veg. during the winter months when not much is in season, so even the perishable stuff like produce doesn’t make it onto the list every week.)
I would also point out that I know a few people who are on the Atkins diet and would have the high-fat meat, etc., in their carts, but have lost significant weight and are at a healthy size now. People will also sometimes buy things for non-present family members who aren’t as healthy, too. For example, the Pop Tarts and Cocoa Puffs in my cart are all for MrWhatsit. And that’s still not an indicator of someone’s size, because MrWhatsit is quite lean and fit, partially because he works off a lot of fat as a mail carrier, and partially because he limits the Pop Tarts and Cocoa Puffs to occasional indulgences.
My point being, you really can’t go by what’s in the cart. Not that that stops me from looking.
I play the game, but to see if I think someone is single.
Look for the single piece of fruit, the pizza-for-one.
And bachelors always have a six pack and something to go with it like a small bag of beef jerky or beer nuts.
Once you have them “pegged” look for a wedding ring.
I always play this game: I check out the people in line in front of me, I guess how healthy they are by how they look/behave, and then I look in their cart and see what’s in it. I’m usually not surprised.
You’d never have had any luck from my shopping cart. I’ve always been very good at buying fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy cuts of meat, and fairly healthy snacks. These sat around in my pantry and refrigerator, slowly moldering, while I snatched meals from McDonald’s and Taco Bell because I didn’t feel like cooking.
You might have better luck now, if you correctly surmised from the piles of South Beach Diet frozen dinners and breakfast wrap, lunch wraps, and snack bars, that someone who is always too busy to cook is seriously trying to lose weight …
Usually, we play the “how much is it gonna cost” game with other shoppers. I can usually come within $5 of the total.
As for what’s in your cart correlating to your weight? Nope, not that I’ve noticed. Actually, most people buy a lot of the same type of stuff. At least in my neck of the woods. I can always tell the difference between single versus married, and married w/out kids versus married w/kids, though.
Sadly, I have played this game for food stamps. (Not to WIN food stamps, that’s what I’m mentally betting on.) I see what goes on the conveyer and guess whether the buyer will be using food stamps. I’m very often right, too.
It is fun, though, to find a cart with no one near it and try to guess what type of person will come by to reclaim it. Frozen pizzas, beer and jarred spaghetti sauce? Youngish guy. Barley? A woman wearing no makeup. Crappy cereals and lots of snacks? A guy with kids.
Heh. I went through the self checkout lane to avoid embarassment, but of course I had to show I.D. for the wine and I think the woman saw my purchases because I saw her looking at me and chuckling as I walked away.
No congrats yet, a big negative from the test. The sled was for my son, it finally snowed last weekend and all the winter stuff was on clearance. It was an impulse purchase, I really came in to just to get the test. I had a feeling it would be negative, so I got some wine too, because the benefit of not being pregnant is that you can still have some delicious wine.
Love the “spin the bottle” response though. Also, if I ever go into the sled business, I am going to name my company Rosebud Sleds.
