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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Bottomless Soup Bowl Proves Eyes Are Bigger Than Stomach

10/14/2007  | CityNews.ca Staff

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Bottomless Soup Bowl Proves Eyes Are Bigger Than Stomach




A Cornell scientist found out some surprising news about the average person's appetite: our eyes really are bigger than our stomachs.


Brian Wansink's study involved "bottomless" bowls of soup. Participants were told to eat until they felt full. Those with normal soup bowls ate about 9 ounces of soup, or 155 calories. Those with bottomless bowls ate nearly twice that: 15 ounces of soup and 268 calories.


The kicker? Those with never-ending soup thought they ate just as much as those with regular bowls - because they had only eaten "half" a bowl of soup.


The news isn't surprising to Wansink. He has done other studies about portion size with college students. In one experiment, students were allowed to chose the amount of food on their plate, but were instead given 25-50 per cent more food. Most students cleaned their plates.


Wansink asked college students when they'd stop eating if they had an 18-ounce bowl of soup.  The majority of students, 81 per cent, said they would use a visual reference point. The other students said they would stop when they felt full.


Wansink's theory was right.  Four people sat around a table, each with a bowl of soup in front of them.  Two of the bowls were rigged to an apparatus under the table that kept the bowls constantly full.  Participants were told to eat until they felt full, and each person sat at the table for 20 minutes.


His work has garnered attention from the Ig Nobel (as in ignoble) prize committee. It's an award given by Annals of Improbable Research to peer-reviewed scientific studies that happen to be funny.  "One of the cool benefits of doing this," said Wansink, is that the awards are handed out by actual Nobel prizewinners.

  Brian Wansink (L) of Cornell University is awarded a 2007 Ig Nobel Prize by real Nobel Laureate Dudley Herschbach (R), 04 October 2007. Photo courtesy STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images. 
 
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