Dieting: Plate Size Matters, Color Matters Too

All that matters are the Calories.

Bigger is certainly more enticing when it comes to devouring foods we love – the more we see, the more tempted we may be to dig in.

But new research published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that plate and table color matter too when it comes to the amount a person eats at a given sitting.

Many diet experts recommend that people looking to lose weight should replace their dinner plates with appetizer-sized plates, which will help them decrease their portion size. But results from five different studies conducted by researchers suggest that both size and the contrast in the color of foods to the plate influence how much a person eats.

The researchers based their studies on an optical illusion theory described by the 19th century philosopher Franz Delboeuf. Delboeuf observed that if two circles the same size were placed inside two other circles that were different sizes, the same-sized inner circles would also seem to be different sizes.

The only illusions here are that people will not realize that they are eating from smaller plates and that they will not compensate for it.

Silly data.