from Journal of the Association for Consumer Research
Dieters are told to use smaller plates as a
way cut the amount of food they eat.
But Cornell University researchers
discovered another way to influence how
much we eat. They divided four large
round pizzas into eight regular-sized
pizzas or sixteen smaller slices. They
placed two pizzas on tables not much
bigger than the pizzas and the other two
pizzas on large tables. The researchers
then told college students to have as
much pizza as they wanted. The
students were not fooled by the smaller
pieces on the small table—they took
twice as many pieces. But the large
tables seemed to distract them and they
seemed to accept the smaller sizes of
pizza as regular in size. Researchers say
to eat less food, serve food in small
portions and on large tables. The study
is in the Journal of the Association for
Consumer Research.