Does plate color or shape affect appetite?

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jw17695
jw17695 Posts: 438 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was wondering if plate color or shape affects appetite? Somewhere I thought I heard that the size does. For example, If you have a smaller plate then it tricks your brain into thinking that you have already eaten a lot?

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  • nakrya
    nakrya Posts: 191
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    I was wondering if plate color or shape affects appetite? Somewhere I thought I heard that the size does. For example, If you have a smaller plate then it tricks your brain into thinking that you have already eaten a lot?

    Not too sure about that but for me personally I use a smaller plate and I find it helps greatly with portion control. And I love houseware stuff, sooo I tend to buy cute little plates and it makes eating much more enjoyable.
  • tipusnr
    tipusnr Posts: 572
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    I'm no expert but, from personal experience, it really does. My wife and I stopped using "everyday" dishes at all as they promote the idea that eating is no big deal and we want our meals to be mini-events.

    Restaurants go through a lot of research to use the dinnerware that most complements their offerings and you should to. Size is easier to experiment with. Put a single sandwich with a few fiber chips on a dinner plate and on a salad plate and see if it makes a difference to you. I think it will.

    Green and beige vegetables and chicken looks like a lot better meal on a red plate where the color difference stands out than against a green plate where they someone blend in. Even with my defective color vision!

    Looks and taste ARE connected. I'd play around with it and have some fun!
  • SquidInTraining
    SquidInTraining Posts: 196
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    I don't know if it makes your brain think you've eaten less, but from years working in restaurants, I can say that smaller plates seem to more accurately reflect normal portion size.
  • kwardklinck
    kwardklinck Posts: 1,601
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    I use smaller plates. It just helps with portion control. It does look like a lot more than serving my food on a huge dinner plate. I also eat so much slower now and drink between every bite. Everyone's done with their large portions when I'm only halfway through with my more moderate portions.
  • sparkles321
    sparkles321 Posts: 107
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    I think it helps on two levels, the first being the obvious assistance with portion control. The other is that it balances out the "eat everything on your plate" mentality we grew up with (even when we don't conciously realize we're doing it). Eating everything on your plate isn't the calorie-consuming monster when you start with a small plate.
  • kiffypooh
    kiffypooh Posts: 1,045 Member
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    I too use smaller plates and I think it makes a huge difference on rather I fell "cheated" or not. I realized the biggest difference when my cousin would eat a scoop of ice cream out of a scoop sized bowl (like the kinds cooking shows use when they've prepped all their food) and it looked like it was over flowing.
    Great post, I like the idea and what that person said about the red plates.
  • chandnikhondji
    chandnikhondji Posts: 136 Member
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    I was wondering if plate color or shape affects appetite? Somewhere I thought I heard that the size does. For example, If you have a smaller plate then it tricks your brain into thinking that you have already eaten a lot?

    For me the thing with the size is true. When i have bigger plates i think i didn't eat as much as when i use a smaller dish, though it is the same amount of food.

    Color and shape didn't have any effect to me yet, though.
  • Brendasue1
    Brendasue1 Posts: 1
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    For me Yes. I love the look of my place setting before i ever add food, a sharp charger and nice plate with some design a beautiul salad bowl and of course cloth napkins with beautiful cool napkin holders. I find i eat less because my senses are looking seeing and touch the beautiul setting, the food ( taste ) is not the only sense being stimulated. it really helps me, i hate to eat out of paper, i eat fast and want to get rid of it
  • jw17695
    jw17695 Posts: 438 Member
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    I ask because I'm in the market for new dishes. So it sounds like I can use smaller plates. What about color or shape?
  • JandCsMommy
    JandCsMommy Posts: 35 Member
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    The smaller plate trick totally works for me!
  • Sunsh1ne
    Sunsh1ne Posts: 879 Member
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    I use a salad plate rather than a dinner plate so I can control my portions better, and I've tested it. When I serve food on a bigger plate, my portion sizes increase accordingly. It freaks my dad out, but it works for me, just like using a food scale to measure portions.
  • sportsqueen32
    sportsqueen32 Posts: 115
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    Well we still use our everyday dinner plates for dinner. They are large square plates in brick red, olive green, and off white. It doesn't matter how big or small the plate is, what matters is how much food you put on it. We don't precisely measure our food, but I know if I have more veggies than starch on my plate. If I buy 12 oz of chicken breasts and there are 4 breasts then I know that they are roughly 3 oz a piece. We never get up for seconds because those seconds are meant for our lunches the next day.
    The one ultimate psych I would love is the ice cream sundae that is really a banana in disguise. I think we all know that the most important thing is self control and will power. Just my thoughts!!
  • HealthyChanges2010
    HealthyChanges2010 Posts: 5,831 Member
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    Oh YAY, I just found the book on Amazon:
    http://www.amazon.com/Mindless-Eating-More-Than-Think/dp/product-description/0553804340

    It'll let you view some of the book too, love when they allow that! :) I already own it and can't say enough good about it! It does cover plate sizes, dish colors shapes etc. How they can effect how quickly or slowly we eat our meals. So much more is covered in the book. It's so easy for a meal to get lost on a large plate, I now use 8 inch plates for dinner etc.

    From time to time I look at dishware and am shocked to see dinner plates as big at 14 inches as the main plate, salad plates are 12, then a smaller plate is tossed in and then a giant cereal bowl you could probalby but 3 cups of cereal in. Yikes When I look at dishes now I'm more successful buying them open stock for this very reason.

    Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (Hardcover)
    ~ Brian Wansink

    Product Description
    In this illuminating and groundbreaking new book, food psychologist Brian Wansink shows why you may not realize how much you’re eating, what you’re eating–or why you’re even eating at all.

    • Does food with a brand name really taste better?
    • Do you hate brussels sprouts because your mother did?
    • Does the size of your plate determine how hungry you feel?
    • How much would you eat if your soup bowl secretly refilled itself?
    • What does your favorite comfort food really say about you?
    • Why do you overeat so much at healthy restaurants?

    Brian Wansink is a Stanford Ph.D. and the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. He’s spent a lifetime studying what we don’t notice: the hidden cues that determine how much and why people eat. Using ingenious, fun, and sometimes downright fiendishly clever experiments like the “bottomless soup bowl,” Wansink takes us on a fascinating tour of the secret dynamics behind our dietary habits. How does packaging influence how much we eat? Which movies make us eat faster? How does music or the color of the room influence how much we eat? How can we recognize the “hidden persuaders” used by restaurants and supermarkets to get us to mindlessly eat? What are the real reasons most diets are doomed to fail? And how can we use the “mindless margin” to lose–instead of gain–ten to twenty pounds in the coming year?

    Mindless Eating will change the way you look at food, and it will give you the facts you need to easily make smarter, healthier, more mindful and enjoyable choices at the dinner table, in the supermarket, in restaurants, at the office–even at a vending machine–wherever you decide to satisfy your appetite.
    About the Author
    Brian Wansink, Ph.D., is an Iowa native and earned his doctorate at Stanford University. He is the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Nutritional Science at Cornell University, where he is Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. The author of three profesional books on food and consumer behavior, he lives with his family in Ithaca, New York, where he enjoys both French food and French fries each week.
  • MysterriGal
    MysterriGal Posts: 52 Member
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    I find how I arrange my food on my plate makes a difference. I try to make a little presentation. I often use the big plates, but add another dish on it. Say I'm having chicken and salad, my chicken is on the big plate, my salad is in a matching bowl laid on the plate. I find presentation makes your food more enjoyable in any case. When other senses are satisfied, also are you satisfied over all. And in this case, there really isn't room for anything else, so it appears to be just as much as my husbands style of piling everything in one big mountain.
  • megamom
    megamom Posts: 920 Member
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    Personally if it's food and on a plate, or paper plate, maybe even a rock I would eat it. But I am getting better, LOL.

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