Can Plate Sizes Help You Eat Less Automatically?

We came across this article by researcher, Brian Wansink, PhD who is writer of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think published on his website at SlimbyDesign.com. His article goes into greater detail, but …

Here are some of the takeaways….

Studies have been conducted which show, overall, that  smaller plates can help reduce consumption under specific conditions. A new study conducted by Cornell Food and Brand lab looked all these earlier research projects together.  The researchers looked at 56 research studies examining the effect of smaller plates on consumption. The studies examined a wide variety of conditions: food type, plate-type, portion-size and setting to see whether smaller plates reduce actual food consumption.

After they combined all the studies, the researchers concluded that cutting the plate size in half led to an average 30% reduction in amount of food consumed. You can cut the area of a plate by half by reducing the diameter of the plate by 30%.

Read more on this study at SlimbyDesign.com.

It’s not just your plates making you eat more

Our other dishes including your glasses, cups, and bowls deserve some scrutiny.  The studies basically show that if you have large cereal bowls, you’ll basically eat large bowls of cereal.  If you have large beverage glasses, you’ll drink large glasses of beverages–only an advantage if you are drinking water.  So, get your crew into the habit of using the large glasses for water, the 8 ounce glasses for milk, and those tiny little 4 ounce glasses for fruit juice.