Can a Pair of Glasses Trick You Into Eating Less? [VIDEO]
For years, many diet experts have advised using smaller plates for our food. By doing so, normal portions look bigger and thus fool us into thinking we’ve eaten more than we have.
Now a group of Japanese researchers have taken that idea one further — they’ve created goggles that make food look larger.
The virtual reality head pieces with built-in cameras manipulate the way food appears while leaving the rest of your field of vision unaffected.
Oreos, for example, look twice as big with the goggles on, causing volunteers in the studies to eat 10 percent less than they normally would — but when the effect was reversed to make the cookie look smaller, participants ate 15 percent more.
And since the way food smells has a lot to do with how appetizing we find it to be, the headgear can also emit scents to enhance the perceived sweetness of an otherwise bland snack — which caused 80 percent of the study volunteers to think they were eating something they actually weren’t.
The goggles aren’t available to the general public yet, but scientists are looking into potential dietary uses. Take a look at them in action below.