Calorie Consumption Determined By Size Of Your Dining Table, Study Reveals

Bigger table, but less food equals fewer calories! Scientists found that the size of the table where we eat may have a major influence on how much we eat. In this study, researchers at Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab found that people's proportions are mostly based on the size of a table and the amount of food that it holds, this determines how much a person will eat.

The researchers gathered four large pizza pies, which were cut into regular slices (eighths) and smaller slices (sixteenths). Two of the pies were placed on tables that were slightly bigger than a pizza. The two other pies were placed on tables that were much larger than a pizza. They instructed 219 university students to one of the four tables, where they could eat as much pizza as they liked.

The researchers observed that the students at the small tables were right in thinking that smaller slices seemed half as big as the regular slices, thus they ate twice as many. The students at the larger tables were more intrigued by the size of the table instead of the small pizza slices. They presumed that the small slices were more regular in size. The students with the smaller slices ate the same amount as those with the normal slices at the larger table.

The researchers concluded that the students consumed far less calories when a pizza pie was cut into small slices and placed at a large table.

"To eat less food, serve food in small portions and on large tables," Brennan Davis, lead author of the study, said in a news release.

The findings of this study were published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.

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