How Much You Eat Depends on Where You Eat It

Writing in The Observer, a publication of the Association for Psychological Science, Herbert Wray tells us why the French are thinner than Americans are: they eat less. And one reason they eat less, says Wray, is that their unit servings of food are smaller. Wray directs our attention to research conducted by University of Pennsylvania
psychologist Andrew Geier and colleagues, who did three similar experiments. In one, they put out a bowl of
Tootsie Rolls for public consumption; some days the Tootsie Rolls were
large, and other days they were small. They did the same test with
Philadelphia-style soft pretzels; some days they put out whole
pretzels, while other days they cut them in half. Finally, they put out
a large bowl of M&Ms, alternating a tablespoon-sized serving spoon
with a spoon four times that size. Wray says the results, as reported in the June issue of the APS journal Psychological Science,
were unambiguous. Whatever their junk food of choice, people helped
themselves to substantially more when they were offered supersized
portions. Put another way,say Wray, offering small portions
effectively controlled how much people ate.
Read more about Geier’s research in the Washington Post.