by Mark Miranda
 

Between office get-togethers, cocktail parties and dinner parties, your pants may be fitting a bit tighter. Perhaps having downed plates of appetizers or desserts without even realizing it may be to blame. Recent studies have shown that most of our food choices are a result of what our eyes see, not what our stomachs want.
Food choices are often a result of our surroundings — the drone of the television or the line at the buffet table — not our own internal hunger cues. But what provokes these unintentional eating reflexes and is there anything we can do to combat them?
Researchers are working to answer these questions. One of the prominent individuals Brian Wansink, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University and executive director of the US Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, has pioneered research of the psychology behind food choices.
Among Wansink’s most heralded work is his research on portion size. While what we eat is important, how much we consume is equally significant. Choosing pretzels over chips may be a step in the right direction, but when you eat an entire bag at one sitting, you have done yourself no favors.
Research clearly shows that the larger the serving offered, the more food eaten. In an experiment conducted by Wansink’s research team, subjects were given a two-pound bag, a one-pound bag or a half-pound bag of M&M candies. Within a given time period, those who ate from the larger bags consistently consumed more than those given the smaller serving. Ironically, the results were no different when the food is less appealing. Repeating the experiment with stale popcorn, moviegoers with larger popcorn buckets swallowed roughly 50 percent more than subjects who held less food in their laps.
And people don’t even realize they are eating more. In another Wansink experiment, participants unknowingly ate from two soup bowls. While one set of bowls was unaltered, a second set was rigged to slowly refill as it was being eaten - imperceptibly to the diner. Although these subjects ate 30 to 40 percent more soup, they were unable to perceive having consumed a larger portion. The power of what we see, it appears, is one of the strongest predictors of how much we eat. A portion of food simply looks smaller when next to a larger package.
Fortunately, we can use this principle to work for, rather than against us, by tricking our eyes to see more than what is really there. Much of Wansink’s research supports the notion that satisfying the eyes is a key precursor to satisfying the stomach. To avoid visual traps that make us eat more than we may think, try employing the following tips:
• Serve your entrée on a salad or dessert plate.
• Choose tall, thin glasses for your morning juice.
• Pre-portion snacks in smaller bags after purchasing.