Eating in small plates can help reduce weight: study

Washington D.C.: Besides running on treadmill for hours to cut down unnecessary fat from your body, using smaller plates can also be highly effective.

Previously, a lot of researches have been conducted to see that whether small portions help in reducing fat or not and a new research conducted by the Cornell Food and Brand lab examined all these prior research projects together and found that overall, smaller plates can help reduce consumption under specific conditions.

The researchers collated 56 previous research studies examining the effect of smaller plates on consumption. The various studies examined whether smaller plates reduce consumption for a wide variety of conditions: food type, plate-type, portion-size and setting.

After combining all the studies, researchers showed that halving the plate size led to a 30 per cent reduction in amount of food consumed on average. In the case of plates, reducing the diameter by 30 per cent halves the area of the plate and reduces consumption by 30 per cent.

The research found two important factors that amplify the effectiveness of small plates in reducing consumption. The first is that smaller plates reduce consumption best if diners are self-serving their portions. That is, if diners invited to serve themselves are provided with smaller plates they serve themselves less and by extension, eat less.

The second factor is that the smaller plates work best if consumers are unaware that their consumption is being monitored. That is, modifying the plate size appears to have no effect on consumption if people realize that they are being watched.

This helps explain why so many studies conducted in food laboratories have not found an effect of plate-size on consumption.

Joint-author Natalina Zlatevska said that the findings of this research show that simply switching to smaller plates can help curb overeating among individuals in situations where they serve themselves such as at the home dinner table or at a buffet.

The study is published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.