Have you heard of Delboeuf illusion? Take two exactly same black dots, surround them by differently sized circles, one big and one small, and the two dots will appear differently, yes, one big and one small. How come? Our brains mislead us, they takes things in relative contexts.

Dr. Van Ittersum from Gerogia Tech and Dr. Wansink from Cornell, think that the same optical illusion affects our perception of serving size and consequently how much we consume. Through a series of experiments, they showed that people underserved and overestimated serving size by 12% on small dishes, and overserved and underestimated serving size by 13% on large dishes. The effect of illusion is so deeply rooted in our brains, that even prior knowledge of the effect before the serving experiment could not prevent the bias. Although subconsciously we get tricked, we can make conscious decisions to use the trick to our advantage. Here is how:

1. Buy and use small dishes

2. Buy and use tall and skinny glasses

3. Place healthy food at eye level in your kitchen (to make it the default easy choice)

4. Avoid food porn (looking at tasty foods makes us hungry)

5. Use food coloring (e.g. red imitates sweet)

6. Eat with men (to use the effect of social norms)

By Dorota Porazinska

Picture By Nemo’s great uncle