About This Project

I eat a lot of Chipotle burritos with my wife. My burritos are always bigger than hers. I want to find out if this is a pattern for different stores and different people. Is Chipotle burrito size directly correlated with the customer's body size?

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

To date, I haven't seen any peer-reviewed research papers that have investigated variations in Chipotle burrito size. Our research question comes from our own lived experiences. Whenever my wife and I go to Chiptole, we always get two burritos: one for me and one for her. Without fail, my burrito will be measurably bigger than hers. We suspect this is because I (6'7") am bigger than her (smaller than 6'7").

What is the significance of this project?

Honestly, the world probably isn't going to change in any significant way because of this research. But we do hope to answer our question: Do Chipotle burritos' sizes directly correlate with the size of the customer who's ordering that burrito?

I guess there could be some significance here, right? We're all paying the same for a burrito, so it's not fair if smaller people get a smaller burrito. Plus, what if it's a small person who's really hungry. Shouldn't that person be entitled to an adequately sized burrito? Has Chipotle quietly been committing body-size-discrimination all these years!?

What are the goals of the project?

We want to answer our question: Does Chipotle make bigger burritos for bigger people? Do they make smaller burritos for smaller people? We've anecdotally noticed a direct correlation between body size and burrito size, but we want to perform a rigorous scientific investigation to confirm or disprove our suspicions.

We plan to have ourselves and 12 of our friends buy 20 total burritos. We will measure the length, circumference, and weight of each burrito. We'll also gather data on each customer's height and weight. We'll then do some data analysis to compare that body-size data with the burrito-size data.