Did you know there’s a simple way to change how much you eat? Simply change the size of the plate, bowl, and/or cup you use.
In their book Switch authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath describe an experiment testing whether “people with bigger buckets [of popcorn would] eat more”. Two groups of participants were given very stale (five days old) free popcorn in medium bowls and large bowls. Following the movie the bowls were weighed and the amount of popcorn eaten measured. “The results were stunning,” write the brothers Heath, “People with the large buckets ate 53 percent more popcorn than people with the medium size . . . Brian Wansink, the author of the study [concluded] . . . ‘We’ve run other popcorn studies, and the results were always the same, however we tweaked the details. It didn’t matter if our moviegoers were in Pennsylvania, Illinois, or Iowa, and it didn’t matter what kind of movie was showing; all of our popcorn studies led to the same conclusion. People eat more when you give them a bigger container. Period.’
“No other theory explains the behavior. These people weren’t eating for pleasure. (The popcorn was so stale it squeaked!) They weren’t driven by a desire to finish their portion. (Both buckets were too big to finish.) It didn’t matter whether they were hungry or full. The equation is unyielding: Bigger container = more eating.”1
I teach my children to place a handful on a plate, bowl, or napkin rather than eating straight from a container (bag of chips, sleeve of Oreos, etc.); it’s too easy to eat mindlessly. This way when it’s gone they notice and they’re not licking the crumbs from the bottom of the whole bag. (Hey, we’ve all done it.).
Pro Tip:
Determine how much you want to eat of something and choose a bowl, plate and/or cup that size. If you wish to eat less of something use smaller dishes.
You can do it! It will be worth it. You’re worth it. Generations will thank you.
You-Thrive.net 