Using A Big Fork May Help You Eat Less

Here's a well-known weight-loss tip: use a smaller plate, and you'll be satisfied with a smaller portion. The tip works — provided you're not genuinely very hungry — because a large part of our satisfaction at the end of a meal is determined by expectations about what a decent meal looks like. If we feel like we've eaten a proper dinner, we're not likely to eat another one an hour later.

If the sight of our meals matters, then how about the sight of each bite? Business-school researchers at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, conducted a clever experiment — published recently [PDF] in the Journal of Consumer Research — to find out.

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