Did you know that you can reduce your weight just by using a smaller plate? In one experiment, conducted by Brian Wansink from Cornell University and Koert van Ittersum from the Georgia Institute of Technology, it was discovered that a shift from 12–inch plates to 10–inch plates resulted in a 22% decrease in calories. Wansink and van Ittersum concluded that the use of smaller plates causes us to eat less and this is because of the optical illusion called  Delboeuf Illusion.

If you serve small portions of food in a bigger plate, you feel like eating more, but if the same amount of food is served in a smaller plate, it gives an illusion of bigness that thwarts the appetite to some extent. This impedes larger intake of food.


According to a research there are two factors which upsurges the effectiveness of small plates in reducing consumption.

1) If the diners are serving themselves then smaller plates works well in reducing the food consumption.

2) If diners are ignorant about their consumption being observed then the use of smaller plates works the best. Altering the plate size seems to have no effect on consumption if people get to know that they are being watched.