{"74056":{"#nid":"74056","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Plate Size, Color Can Lead People to Over-serve Food","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWith the holiday season upon us \u2013 and all the festive food it brings \u2013 \npeople should know that the color contrast between dinnerware and what\u0027s\n placed on top can affect how much we serve ourselves and consume, \naccording a Georgia Tech College of Management researcher.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Instead\n of scooping vanilla ice cream into a white bowl, you\u0027d do better by \nyour diet to pick a different color dish,\u0022 explains Koert van Ittersum, \nan associate professor of marketing at Georgia Tech, who conducted this \nresearch with marketing professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETheir\n study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, sheds light on \nwhy people tend to over-serve themselves when given larger plates and \nbowls.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers found that our susceptibility to \nover-serve ourselves has to do with the Delboeuf illusion, first \ndiscovered in 1865. This illusion leads people to perceive two identical\n circles positioned side by side as dissimilar in size if one is \nsurrounded by a large circle and the other by a smaller circle. They \nperceive the latter as larger.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen it comes to dinnerware, this \nmeans that people (even expert nutritionists) tend to exceed a target \namount of food (the inner circle) when the outer circle (the plate\u2019s \nedge) is much larger in diameter.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers found that \ndiners can lessen the effects of this illusion by heightening the color \ncontrast between their food and dinnerware. The study showed that \nexperimental participants served themselves considerably more when they \nscooped white-sauce pasta onto a white plate than red-sauce pasta onto \nwhite dinnerware.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022White on white or red on red doesn\u0027t provide \nenough visual contrast between the target serving area and the outer \nedge of plate, increasing one\u0027s tendency to over-serve onto larger \ndinnerware and to underserve onto smaller dinnerware,\u0022 van Ittersum \nexplains. \u201cThose who own larger dinnerware in different colors may want \nto choose the color that highly contrasts with the food they are serving\n to minimize over-serving biases.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile greater color contrast \nbetween food and plate can be beneficial to those watching their weight,\n over-serving tendencies also can be reduced by decreasing the contrast \nbetween dinnerware and tablecloth, the study shows. \u201cIf you place a \nwhite plate on a white tablecloth, the Delboeuf illusion is lessened \nbecause the outside circle essentially disappears and you only focus on \nthe inside circle, which is the target food area,\u201d van Ittersum \nexplains.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor nearly 150 years, the Delboeuf illusion was \nregarded as of little practical value, note the researchers in the \nstudy, titled \u201cPlate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf \nIllusion\u2019s Bias on Serving and Eating Behavior\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn the context \nof serving behavior, however, it takes on an undiscovered dimension of \nevery importance\u2026.,\u201d they write. \u201cOver time and time with repeated \nmeals, the gradual impact on one\u2019s weight gain would be significant.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJust\n understanding the phenomenon of the Delboeuf illusion probably isn\u2019t \nenough to visually compensate for its effects, they say. \u201cIn the midst \nof hard-wired perceptual biases, a more straightforward approach would \nbe to simply eliminate larger dinnerware \u2013 replace our larger bowls and \nplate with smaller ones or contrasting ones,\u201d write the researchers.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWith the holiday season upon us \u2013 and all the festive food it brings \u2013 \npeople should know that the color contrast between dinnerware and what\u0027s\n placed on top can affect how much we serve ourselves and consume, \naccording a Georgia Tech College of Management researcher.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Study sheds light on why people tend to over-serve themselves when given larger plates and bowls."}],"uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2011-12-12 17:41:39","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:10:50","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-11-30T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2011-11-30T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"48196":{"id":"48196","type":"image","title":"Koert van Ittersum","body":null,"created":"1449175379","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:42:59","changed":"1475894455","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:40:55","alt":"Koert van Ittersum","file":{"fid":"190139","name":"van-ittersumnews.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/van-ittersumnews.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/van-ittersumnews.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":62088,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/van-ittersumnews.jpg?itok=RUpLilVl"}}},"media_ids":["48196"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/mgt.gatech.edu\/news_room\/news\/2011\/articles\/dinnerwarestudy.html","title":"Georgia Tech College of Management"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"139","name":"Business"}],"keywords":[{"id":"8180","name":"Koert van Ittersum"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBradford Dixon\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAssistant Director of Communications\u003Cbr \/\u003E404.894.3943\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brad.dixon@mgt.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrad.dixon@mgt.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brad.dixon@mgt.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}