The eye is greater than the gut.

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If You Fill It, They Will Slurp -- And Slurp, And Slurp And Slurp ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The eye is greater than the gut.

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Related section: Mind & Brain

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report

dramatic evidence of the importance of visual cues in the control of

food intake in the current issue of Obesity Research, a leading

nutrition journal.

The researchers served a free soup lunch to 54 adults, half of whom

ate from normal 18-ounce soup bowls, while the other half ate from

identical bowls that, unbeknownst to the participants, were slowly

refilled through tubing connected to out-of-sight soup cauldrons.

Those who ate out of the refilling bowls consumed 73 percent more

soup than did participants who ate from the normal soup bowl during

the 20-minute lunch.

Although they averaged 113 more calories than those eating from

normal bowls, those eating from the bottomless bowls believed they

consumed the same number of calories as the other participants and

rated themselves as being no more full.

" People use their eyes to count calories and not their stomachs, "

lead researcher Wansink, professor of marketing and of

nutritional science at Illinois, said. " This can be dangerous to our

diets. "

Because we appear to judge our food intake by visual cues, such as

an empty bowl, Wansink said that people worried about overeating

should carefully consider the size of portion servings in

restaurants and in their kitchens.

He suggested, for example, repackaging snacks and other bulk foods

into small plastic bags. The visual cues from the filled bags can

lead families, especially children, to think that a smaller-than-

normal serving was a satisfying full serving.

The paper, titled " Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size

May Influence Intake, " was co-written by E. Painter, a

professor of family and consumer science at Eastern Illinois

University, and Jill North, a graduate student in food science and

human nutrition at Illinois.